A Prayer for Easter

Can you see me?

I’m helpless here. A clatter of dry bones lying on this sofa. Breathing but dead. Don’t bother to knock. I ain’t getting up any time soon. Just open the door. Come on in if you like.

Put your ear right here, close to my soul. Listen. Is there life inside?

Yes, I remember now. A long time ago, you spoke to someone who felt powerless, heartbroken and afraid. You said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Then you went to a grave, and you cried out,“Lazarus, come forth!”

I am Lazarus. You cried those words to him. You whisper them to me every morning. And you know what? I believe. Yes, I do believe. I trust you.

Trust.

HELP me! O God, bring your resurrection alive inside of me! Cause me to absorb life. I receive into myself your victory over death. Wash over me. Seep into the deepest place in my core. Jesus, may your victory over death penetrate my soul. Affect all that is me. Touch me. Write faith into my journey. Weave your love into my tapestry. Raise every part of me from the grave. Breathe into my thoughts, my attitudes, my dreams.

Awaken me. Fully.

Every morning you send forth the sun to overcome the night. All around me, your creation bursts out. All that is green grows. I want to burst up like that. I want to break through, to erupt with new life, to carry your resurrection into every circumstance, every conversation, every decision.

I am powerless. You are the resurrection and the life. I get it now. Inside out, I will overcome. I will emerge, arise, spring up and prevail. Yes, Easter is so much more than what I knew yesterday. Jesus, I’d always believed that you rose up that Sunday morning. Now there is even more. Easter is my celebration of you, and your gift to me. In you, because of you, from you, through you, I arise and overcome the world.

I will follow you. Take me anywhere. Over mighty peaks and across vast oceans. Through walls and over fences. Up, out, and beyond myself. My fears are swept away. Your courage is my light of day. Your VOICE is heard in me. Say again? I will outrun the storm. I will trample injustice. I will conquer the night. I will carry water and plant a garden in the desert. I am the light of the world.

He is Risen. I am risen.

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world? He who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. I John 5:4-5