*      Amanson: Tomorrow is Easter, a day of rebirth, of resurrection. Symbolic of a great moment in history unlike any other. There are days celebrating great victories and days mourning tragic events of and with great sorrow. But your Easter Sunday is unique in that it celebrates both of these at once – when a great tragedy was turned into a great victory and both mourning and celebration are appropriate. But mourning for the seeming victors and celebration for the seeming vanquished! And this is the lesson of Easter: nothing is as it seems. When a Spirit is clothed in Glory yet resounds with an earthly correspondence, and a body so ravaged as to be unrecognizable is made the vessel of a transcendence beyond everything but belief, you know the game has changed.

Easter announces a new protocol. It is the unveiling of the Unveiling. “Look”, it says, “This is new. Now is new.” The old way of thinking – “things are what they seem''; “what you see is what you get”; “don’t look behind the curtain, there’s nothing there”; those days are suddenly gone. You can only trust now what can be found when the stone is rolled away.

But…the tomb is empty.

Precisely. Nothing is as it seems.

A spirit – the Spirit of Truth – has been unleashed and now walks the land. From whence comes this wonderment? Roll the stone away and find out.

An empty tomb? ‘Nothing is as it seems’. This is one way of translating “the Good News”. Look deep into that empty tomb. What do you see? Squint; strain your eyes. In the darkened corner there, very small, yes… but there. In the distance…you see it? A manger. It begins anew. But this time with your permission, your cooperation, your participation. Look up. It is your turn. Be of good cheer. Happy Easter.