It’s only natural to think of Easter and the Resurrection as a miracle; after all Christ’s rising from the dead is beyond extraordinary and solely in the province of God. Yet, calling Easter a miracle makes the event exclusively God’s and removes us from having anything to do with it. I don’t believe that this is God’s intent since the incarnation of God in Jesus and His death and resurrection were for humanity's salvation and benefit and not God's. God performs miracles but men celebrate sacraments and while God may work a miracle apart from man, man is essential to the presence of a sacrament in that a sacrament requires our participation for its existence.
Easter is sacramental every time one of us reaches out to lighten another's burden no matter how large or small. Easter is sacramental when our words heal, when our hearts understand, when lesser values die in us for the sake of greater realities. We are sacramental with Easter when men know us to be faithful. We are sacramental with Easter when we sacrifice for one another and not for selfish advantage. Easter is never more sacramental than when one man gives/devotes his life for another. Christians seek to make Easter sacramental in their lives by their memory of Jesus through their words and deeds.
John Calvin wrote that in becoming Son of man with us, he made us sons of God with him; that by his descent to earth, he has prepared an ascent to heaven for us; that by taking on out mortality, he has conferred his immortality upon us; that accepting our weakness, he has strengthened us by his power; that receiving our poverty unto himself, he has transferred our wealth to us; that taking the weight of our iniquity upon himself (which oppressed us), he has clothed us with his righteousness. (Kruger, The Shack Revisited, p. 197)
Jesus became incarnate to not only teach us how to live our lives but to reside in God through Jesus and lift us up into a life of communion with the very triune life of God. When we say “in him through him and with him” at the Eucharist, we are reminded of our participation in his birth, death and resurrection. (John 20:1-9).
(Adapted from Dawn without Darkness, Anthony Padovano, p78)
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