Easter Message from Obi-Wan Kenobi: “The Force will be with you, always.”

Several years ago during Easter dinner, a young friend asked, “What’s up with Easter?”  This particular Easter celebration was a secular one and my friend was unschooled in religious stories and symbols.  I think her curiosity was sincere and that she hoped for some insight about the Easter message. 

How would you answer that question?  If you’re not into Biblical crucifixion and resurrection stories, maybe you’d say it’s about eating a special dinner with family and friends.  It might be about enjoying Easter egg hunts and candy.  Maybe you’d mention that Easter is about celebrating spring, bunnies, and chicks – symbols of fertility and rebirth.  Perhaps you have no interest in the question so you’d shrug it off and take a bite of Easter ham or a vegan quiche.

So what did I say?  I surprised myself by proclaiming, “You can’t kill God.”  I’ve thought about my response off and on ever since then.   What exactly did I mean?  I’m taking the occasion of this Easter, several years later, to speculate.

I believe that the empty tomb symbolizes the impossibility of killing God.  We may think God is dead – perhaps brutally tortured and murdered as in the Biblical accounts – but death is an illusion.  As the story goes, the execution was a failure because there was no body in the tomb that Easter morning.

Historically, governments have tried to kill God by outlawing religion.  They have failed.  Atheists have tried to kill God by insisting that rationalism and science are the only avenues to truth.  They have failed.  God keeps popping back up no matter what.

Who or what is this “God” that I’m claiming won’t die?  Is it like “The Force” in George Lucas’ Star Wars, a binding, organized, and ubiquitous power that surrounds and penetrates us?  

 

Is it like the Tao described in Chapter 4 of Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching?

                The Tao is like a well:

                Used but never used up.

                It is like the eternal void:

                Filled with infinite possibilities.

                It is hidden but always present. (Translation by Stephen Mitchell.)

Is it God (“The Force,” The Tao) that fuels compassion, love, hope, courage, creativity, justice, beauty, truth, kindness, wisdom, and reason?  I chose to believe it is.  No matter what we call the source of these things, I believe it is always present.  It may be hidden by depression, cruelty, indifference, and ignorance, but it never dies.  Its green shoots sprout up in the most desolate of landscapes, both cultural and personal.  Easter is a joyful reminder to wake up to the experience of God’s presence, even if you believe that God is dead.

I have chosen to believe in God who is bigger than life and death – a God that is beyond all polarities and yet contains them.  God cannot die.  Lao-tzu tells us that the Tao is “used but never used up.”  “The Force will be with you, always,” says Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

So, I say again, “You can’t kill God.”  That’s what’s up with Easter.