By the Rev. Rachel Birkhahn-Rommelfanger
Dr. Seuss wrote this beautiful book called "On Beyond Zebra!" It starts with Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell announcing that he has learned all the letters of the alphabet and thus he states, "So now I know everything anyone knows from beginning to end. From the start to the close. Because Z is as far as the alphabet goes."
But Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o’Dell is in for a shock when our narrator picks up the chalk to draw one more letter. The narrator announces that most people stop at Z, but not he. He goes on to describe all the additional letters he needs to spell about all the unique things he sees. The narrator's alphabet begins where the standard one ends. There are so many new and wonderful things that our narrator sees and can introduce to us.
If I am honest with myself, I am more often like Cornelius than the narrator. There are times in life I find myself thinking I have seen it all, or I know it all about something. If I am lucky, someone will come along to offer me a new perspective or alternative.
God does that in the Easter resurrection. The Easter resurrection miracle is a chance to see the world anew. The good news is that God is like our narrator in the Dr. Seuss story. God is continuing to interact with us and point out what is beyond the end of the alphabet. In the resurrection, God demonstrates for us that what we knew—that death was the end—is not true. God can do the unimaginable. God can rewrite the rules, and God did that.
Each year, Easter offers me a new perspective and a reminder that God can do more than I have ever possibly imagined. The promise is that God is and will continue to do that. To re-write the rules people make, to re-order our society and our way of thinking.
In this season of Easter, and in the spirit of God’s immeasurable ability and imagination. May each of us try to do something new. May each of us take the time to see the world from a new perspective and allow God to fill us and use for God’s purpose.
May we take a moment to remember and pray Paul’s prayer, as written in Ephesians 3:16-21:
“I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.â€