Sonrise 2022

WAKE UP!

"The best way to make your dreams come true," writes Paul Valery, "is to wake up." How can you have a dream come true if you don't wake up? Before your dreams can come true, you must first wake up! What does it mean that Christ has risen from the dead?

There is a deeply traditional pilgrimage almost all Americans feel pulled to make at least once in their lives - to America's new heartland, Disney.

Disney's original mission statement is simple and straightforward: "Provide People Happiness." In its quest to meet this goal, Disney focused all its energies in the realm of fantasy - convincing the whole country that to find happiness involves escaping reality.

When you visit Disney World, its central image is the Castle of Sleeping Beauty. Its graceful, soaring storybook towers and turrets preside over the rest of the theme park below. Yet unlike all the other attractions in this wonderland it is only a hollow shell - void of content. Except for a few novelty shops along the walkway that cuts through it, this beautiful symbol of Disney's fantasy world come to life is empty.

But its very emptiness is full of meaning. For that is precisely the function of Disney World - to empty us of the harsh realities of life and render us unconscious to those things which are too hard to bear. That is part of the experience of Disney - to become "unconscious" of the real world and to enter a never-never land of fantasy and fakery. Fittingly Sleeping Beauty's Castle - a monument to a trance-like sleep - serves as the portal to this plane.

If Disney entices participants to fall asleep in order to escape life, the church's mission is to urge people to wake up - in order to experience an authentic and full existence. Easter is a reveille call to all believers announcing the dawning of our new relationship with God through Jesus Christ. This is a radically new reality. The message of Easter wakes us, not just from a stuporing slumber, but also calls us from the tombs of sin, bound in grave clothes of despair, to wear robes of righteousness and hope! Easter is not an empty Disney-fantasy. Easter is the rousing, transforming power of God shaking each and every one of us awake to a life in Christ, a life that is everlasting.

But how lackadaisical the church can be in the face of this miraculous gift. We would rather slumber on in a fog than be awakened to the promise of the future. Even this morning - Easter morning! - finds us sitting here to rejoice in the Good News with eyelids heavy and attentiveness droopy as a result of late night preparations.

Wake up, church! Christ is risen from the dead! Wake up to the power the risen Lord brings to your life. Wake up, church. Open up to the power of the Scriptures to speak to your life. As Jesus called Mary's name to finally stir her soul to consciousness, so Christ sends a personal wake-up call to each of us. Easter morning is an annual wake-up call addressed to Christ's own body, the church. Body parts that have fallen asleep must be shaken back into circulation. If you are asleep or lounging about life, it is time to end your hibernation. Wake up, get up and sign up. Let's bring the whole world back to life!