Manifesto: The Revolution of the Resurrection
The liberating, Holy Breath of God | Easter 2, Year C
Not long ago, I arrived home from a visit to my local library with a book I’d discovered in the “new books” section. Green and light blue on the cover, the book caught my attention with its title: Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto. These are all words and phrases that I love. And though I knew nothing at the time about its author, Kohei Saito, I had to check the book out. When my wife Emily saw it in my stack as I arrived home, she commented “you always love a manifesto.” And its true. They have an rousing, radical energy to their words, a clear claim to what is wrong, and a stirring vision for how to fix it. For most of my twenties I carried a printed copy of Wendell Berry’s poem “Manifesto: The Madfarmer Liberation Front” in my pocket. And as an adult, I count writings like “The Dark Mountain Manifesto” by
and as among my favorite pieces of writing.Of course history is littered with manifestos whose visions came to nothing, or worse, wrought terrible misery in the world. Still, there is something important about the call join in a new reality rather than being doomed to acquiesce to the way things are.
In the first century, the manifesto was not yet a popular genre, but the radical call to action was certainly around. Mark’s gospel opens with Jesus preaching, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” That message was the core of his preaching, echoed across all the gospels, and we can imagine the restless crowds of peasants hearing it, stirring with revolutionary hope—the old would be torn down and something new was being created to take its place.
Then they crucified him. The Powers put down the revolution, and all the hope of its radical message of fearless love was lost. The status quo returned with a vengeance, and the disciples were full of fear and despair. We can imagine them as they are found in our Gospel reading today: huddled in a closed and claustrophobic room, the sweat and halitosis of anxious bodies, paralyzed by uncertainty and frantic with fear.
It is into that space, behind those locked doors, that the risen Christ comes. And he comes offering two things: peace and breath. The peace is not the surface level, individual emotion of calm. Instead, it is a wholeness offered to a community; a life-shaping peace that can open up new calls, inspire new visions, and bring about abundant and generous life. This peace is empowered by a new kind of breath, a taste of resurrection air after the suffocating fear of dashed hopes. Jesus offers a gift, the life giving Spirit of God, and all they have to do is receive it, releasing their bent shoulders, opening their closed mouths, and inhaling deeply this Holy Breath that has given life from the beginning of creation. In this peace and breath, the disciples realize that the good news of Jesus is no failed manifesto, the revolution of God’s kingdom is just now getting started.
We see the fruit of that revolution a bit after our reading this Sunday in Acts. In Acts 4 these same disciples who were clustered behind closed doors, are now boldly speaking before the very people who put Jesus to death. And in the power of the Breath of Life, they are forming a new community, one that is no longer animated by fearful clinging to possessions, the doomed attempts to secure their lives, but are instead called forth to share in the abundance of God’s gifts. The life of the church in Acts reflects the reality of the resurrection, a force for new life whose aftershocks still echo through the world. It’s a reality so alive with hope and possibility that even Marx couldn’t have written a manifesto with more radical results.
Wendell Berry’s “Manifesto” is a long poem, and I can’t offer it all here, but its closing line is worth reciting saying: “Practice resurrection.”
Practice resurrection. That was the call that empowered the church in Acts to make the radical choice to share all they had. It was the call that made the early Christians stand out in their communities for their strange patience and shocking forgiveness. It is the practice of resurrection that has permeated every moment when followers of Jesus have breathed in deeply, filling their bodies with God’s Holy Spirit, and doing extraordinary acts of love and mercy as a result. And as a people also called to live in the reality of Easter, we too are called to practice resurrection through the life of the Spirit.
Wherever there is fear or doubt, wherever there are broken relationships and dashed hopes, the risen Christ comes calling us to receive the Holy Spirit and join in practicing the life of resurrection. We do this not through radical action for its own sake, some dour duty to a faith that does not give life. Instead, our call is to empty our hearts, spend deep time in prayer, and receive with each breath the gifts that God offers. As we learn to live from that breath, our lives will be shaped into a different form, free from the common patterns born of the fear and frenzy of our world. From the energy of that Holy Breath we may give away our property, or we may do something more mundane, like listening with attentive grace to a lonely neighbor. It is not the act, so much as the reality that matters: is it resurrection, is it life? The manifesto of God’s good news calls us forward. The revolution of the resurrection is just now getting started.
Good stuff Ragan. I assume you've read Eugene Peterson's 'Practice Resurrection? If not, it's very good. I think you'd enjoy it.