Metanoia. That is what resurrection sunday means to me.
Meta is “after” and noeo is to reflect, to think deep. After the fact, metanoia compels me to think, to reassess, to change. It is the change of consciousness, radical change though, but a lifetime transition. It is a determined journey, not a half-hearted trek that splits into many directions midway.
That’s the unassuming resurrection power on Easter, a day of change, a change of heart and soul, spirit and body - the sublime effect of intimate transformation.
And the Cross is the axis mundi, that is, the connection between heaven and earth, through which a prilgrim may walk pass, like Jacob’s ladder. And this axis mundi is embodied in the words of Jesus, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
He is therefore the bridge; not one who stands at the other side and hollers the directions or throws a map over the chasm. But one who joins us in our quest for meaning and purpose, and in the pained journey, ends up inviting us to join him in the defining destination that is Calvary, to witness for ourselves metanoia at its bloodiest, at its most defenceless, at its most profaned.
That is why CS Lewis said: “A cleft has been opened in the pitiless walls of the world,” and with it we catch a glimpse of that holy intersection between a kingdom the tempter is offering us and the kingdom the one crucified has promised us. Alas, the two worlds often colliding in our struggles to live with meaning and purpose; one world is unrelentingly irresistible and the other is infinitely indispensable.
But let me just say that the enduring power of his story is not on the day he is risen. And I am not being a wet blanket here, in particular, this wet Easter morning. Its enduring power is however on the day or the many days prior. For no champion worth his weight in gold wins by having the crown handed over to him without fighting for it.
In other words, he wins it by fighting the good fight, and running the good race. We all know that no race finishes at the starting line. And it is not so much the end that changes the partaker of this race, it is the decision to run it to the end, one persevering step at a time, that metanoia is made complete in our life.
Author Brian Mountford said: “The spiritual and moral heart of the Gospel is expressed not so much in Easter Day as in that goes before. If you haven’t got the message by the time Jesus is nailed to the cross, you’re never going to. In telling the story, our contemporary culture has concentrated on everything being lovely on Easter Day, and decorated it with kitsch - eggs and bunnies - whereas the power of the story is in Jesus’s resilience and integrity as he walks through the valley of the shadow of death.”
Yet, having said all that, the cross and the resurrection do not stand separate and apart. What is one without the other? Like colours and light, you can have the most mesmerising colours in the best combination ever conceivable, but in sheer darkness it lies in waste, denied of sight and appreciation.
So, truly, the resurrection may celebrate a victory, but focusing on it exclusively makes faith a mirage that can never withstand the siren call of a world the tempter has prepared for us.
If you need an example, it is no different from one who enters the race hoping for a big break midstream. Very much like the prosperity gospel, he craves after the risen rather than the seed that first falls to the ground and dies. Nothing rises without first being planted. And no seed ever flourishes apart from the good soil. Indeed, anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternity.
But mind you, focusing exclusively on the cross turns one into a recluse, living a life of an ascetic. For he has left us with one compelling commission and two empowering commandments, not a hermitage for us to hibernate in. What good is then a seed that bears no fruit or a light hidden under the bed where no one is ever guided by it.
Let me bring this to a close to say that Jesus did not come to persuade us with possession or power; neither win us over with fame nor fortune. For didn’t he say that the first shall be the last; the poor shall savour his kingdom; the hungry filled, the weeping laughing, and the persecuted rewarded?
His message is thus simple enough. He had in fact demonstrated it in the life he had lived. For he is the way, because he journeyed through it; the truth, because he lived it out; and the life, because he had given it up. That is the power of the cross and the resurrection - when the two become one, when colours and light coincide.
That is also the essence of metanoia, that is, the enduring change that awaits at the foot of Calvary when we partake not just in his overcoming, but also his suffering. And to think of it any lesser is to believe in a form of godliness and not its power, in the appearance of change and not enduring change.
Indeed, Jim Elliot’s journal entry puts it timelessly: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."
Have a restful Easter. Have a victorious week. Have a day of fruitful reflection.
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