“After that He appeared in another form to two of them as they walked and went into the country.”  Mark 16:12

“The Glory of God is man fully alive.”  St. Irenaeus

On that first “First Day of the Week” Jesus awoke, shucked the sheets and left the sepulchre, fully alive.

He spoke with the women in the garden.

He walked with disciples on a road and into the countryside.

He blessed and broke bread with the disciples.

He greeted the disciples from the shore and then ate fish for breakfast.

He lived. Fully.

He was fully alive!

The question, dear friend is, are we? Are we fully alive?

For all the sins that are the focus of the faithful, the one that is most overlooked but probably the most egregious is failing to live fully. Of living in a kind of semi-comatose existence, simply trying to survive and make it through the daily grind. Of failing to grasp the miracles of living found in every moment of every minute of every day.

To live a resurrected life does not mean waiting until we die in the hope of having a heavenly home. It means to Live Now!  And what does that mean?

It means we forgive ourselves for the past and forget about the future and live in the eternal now. It means that we shuck the sheets of guilt and shame of real or imagined sins that bind us and suck the breath and life out of us.  It means we no longer exist as zombies, simply punching life’s time card in the hopes that one day we’ll get a paycheck from God.  It means we walk out of whatever dark grave we’ve been sleeping in and burst out the door that has been opened wide by the One who first passed through it.

Being Fully Alive means that we walk in the garden.  That we take time to smell the flowers . . . so many varieties of flowers.  What was the last scent you smelled, and savored? 

Being Fully Alive means that we stop and listen to the birds sing.  And then we sing with them, not worried about whether anyone can hear us.

Being Fully Alive means that we greet the morning sun and relish the rays that melt the ice and snow that has encrusted our hearts and frozen our spirits.

Being Fully Alive means that we look up at the moon at night and marvel at the majesty of the universe and creation.  And as we do so we realize that though we are so small and seemingly insignificant, that nonetheless God cares for us!  Each of us!

Being Fully Alive means that we bless the bread that we break, that we savor each bite of breakfast, tasting the goodness of the Lord.  Remembering that it is here that God comes to us to nourish us and make us a dwelling place of the divine.

Being fully alive means that we drink fresh water, life-giving water, and contemplate the One who walked on water, who turned water into wine, who was declared to be the Beloved as He stood in water.  And we celebrate that in those life-giving waters we also have been called the Beloved.  And we rejoice, rather than self-righteously reject,  all of the other beautiful Beloved’s in this world, who are so delightfully different from us, and yet so very much the same.

Being Fully Alive means that we live as the children of God that we are.  That we live like children on Easter morning, filled with wonder and amazement and merriment.  And if we’ve forgotten how to do this,  we intentionally seek out a time when we can watch children at play, to be reminded of how to play!

Being Fully Alive means that we worry less about all that is wrong, and wonder more about all that is right.  And that we recognize that even in the midst of the most grievous circumstances, that God brings about redemption.

Being Fully Alive means that we realize that the worst sins are not the ones that are too often cherry picked by self-righteous religious people, but rather the failure to fully embrace this wonderful new life that God has graced us with.

Being Fully Alive means that we look at ourselves and then others through this lens of grace, giving up the injurious judgments that we impose on ourselves and others.

Being Fully Alive means that we Love for Love’s sake.

Being Fully Alive means that we forgive.

Being Fully Alive means that we live.  That we stop and Live.  And then Go and Live.  The miracle of Easter is that Jesus rose from the dead.  Yes.  But that’s only the beginning.  For each of us the living miracle of Easter is living the Easter miracle. Every day! Fully Alive!