Finding Jesus, Joy, and New Life
By Janine C. Hagan
Janine is the Founder, Publisher, and Editor-in-Chief of ecumininet™ online!, President of Spiritual Systems, Inc. With a background and certification as a Christian Educator and a card game and a computer game in the marketplace, Janine focuses on design and development work in creative Christian communication from corporate to individual Life & Faith-Story consulting. She and her husband Don worship at Edgewood Presbyterian Church, Birmingham, Alabama,where she is a member of the choir.

After the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices to go and anoint the body of Jesus. Very early on Sunday morning, at sunrise, they went to the tomb. On the way they said to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb? (It was a very large stone) Then they looked up and saw that the stone had already been rolled back. So they entered the tomb, where they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe—and they were alarmed.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. I know you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is not here—he has been raised! Look, here is the place where he was placed. Now go and give this message to his disciples, including Peter: “He is going to Galilee ahead of you; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and ran from the tomb, distressed and terrified. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. (Mark 16: 1-8, The Holy Bible: Good News Translation)

I will start with sharing my two dreams. The first dream occurred about twenty years ago, a friend of mine from high school had died with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease. We were not close friends but he and I had shared many classes together even as early as elementary school.

In this dream, Philip came to me and said “Janine, I have seen Jesus. He is alive. He is real.” I will not forget that dream. I was a mother of young children and fully dwelt with an understanding and a relationship with and of God, but Jesus? I had struggled for many years with that. At least until someone that I personally knew testified to Christ’s existence in however we name heaven, or the life beyond this life. I became different after that. And after all, the Philip in the Bible, was one of the twelve disciples/apostles.

The second dream happened many years later. I dreamed that I was one of Christ’s followers along the Way of the Cross. I must have dreamed the scripture, or from my imagination. Or perhaps I even tapped into that pool of collective experience and memory. However it may be, the images from those terrible events burned into my mind and heart. I can never go into the season of Lent (those 40 days before Easter) without a sickening feeling. The price for our reconciliation to God came at a tremendous cost which burdens my heart as much as my mind.

As I think about the women going to the tomb, I wonder about our fear of “rolling away the stone.” I wonder about the lack of understanding and experiencing, not just knowledge; that the stone, the hard work, has already been done for us. I also wonder about how we run away from where Jesus has been buried, wherever that is. Our fear of finding Jesus is great for when we do find Him…then what do we do? This is not as difficult for some in the Christian community as others. But for many, Easter keeps repeating itself without the link to Pentecost and activity of the Holy Spirit which ignites the birth and life of the church.

Do we connect Easter to the rest of the year, I wonder? Do we “connect” Jesus to our real lives? Are we really able to comprehend joy in its rawest/rarest form? It feels, well, uncomfortable. Is it possible that joy or “new life” for that matter, can be “uncomfortable?” Could that be why we often run from it? This is get- real, gut-and- God type stuff here, only in abstract. I wonder…

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