Easter as Koan

Koan  (koh-ahn) is a Japanese term for riddle, an unsolvable enigma.  Koans are foundational to Zen Buddhist practice.  Adherents meditate on the koan —  the most well-known being, “what is the sound of one hand clapping?”  The rational mind can’t solve the riddle; it is necessary to move to a deeper place of perceiving, not so much to solve it, but to ponder it differently.  I remember an American Zen master describing koans as a “truth happening places”, which meant that if we ponder koans long enough we will arrive at a truth – not so much about the koan itself, but about life and meaning.

There are many koans in the Christian Gospels:  If you want to save your life, you must lose it; the last shall be first and first shall be last.  But the ultimate koan is what the western Christian world celebrated yesterday:  Easter, the event of Jesus coming back from the dead.  It defies rational explanation.  It can’t be proven.  And yet the Resurrection is the ground zero moment of the Christian faith.

And the questions emerge, the skepticism surfaces and the doubts persist:  did Jesus come back to life in bodily form, with ten fingers and ten toes, and with a normal blood pressure?  How did that happen?  How could it happen?

I don’t know the answer to those questions, but I will acknowledge that there are many Christians who insist on providing them.  But that is not where the Easter koan takes me. Over the years I continue to ponder the remarkable and mysterious Easter story.  And instead of trying to figure out how it happened,  I wonder:   what is the koan’s effect?  For me, as I sit with the Easter stories, what I find is that the Resurrection opened people’s eyes to see in a completely new and different way.  It enabled Mary, the disciples and the two followers on the road to Emmaus to see — to see new life in Jesus, to see new life in each other, and to see the possibility of new life in the darkest of places.

Now Thomas wasn’t going to be satisfied by just being able to see; he needed to feel; he needed tactile proof.  And he got it.  And still questions arise:  when Thomas stuck his hand in Jesus’ side, did he really feel Jesus’ intestines?  Did he actually put his hand through the hole in Jesus’ hand that were left by thick spikes?

I don’t know.  But I can say that being able to feel – be it emotionally or physically, heightened Thomas’ ability to see, as it does for me.  To see with both imagination and compassion – which involves both  seeing and feeling; two ingredients that our egos are nervous about, because they are not easily controlled.  The egos want our vision to be focused elsewhere – on what we can know empirically and definitively.

Easter is both an inscrutable koan and an enormous gift.  And more than ever, we need to receive the gift of a new way of seeing life – and particularly new life, because the forces and voices in the world are

ramping up their campaign to focus our vision on the world’s darkness.  The pictures coming out of Ukraine churn the stomach and pierce the heart.   But as the invasion approaches its second month, a protective coating is beginning to emerge.  We want to either shade or close our eyes.  The pictures are freighted with more pain and degradation than the heart can normally stomach.  And so the ego kicks in – with anger, yes, but also with a need to establish some emotional distance from the horror.   The ego seeks stability; it is averse to risk and tries to avoid pain.  And it will attempt to direct us to think, say  — and see, – that all of this evil is happening way over there, which means that it is not happening here (at least not on the same scale).  And which also means that we become tempted to look at the Ukrainian pictures as if they are from yet another gruesome TV show.

Which, of course, is what Putin is hoping for.  That we will become accustomed to all the atrocity.  Not that we would accept it, but that we will be inured to it.  And spend our energy trying to protect ourselves by closing our eyes to what is happening beyond our carefully crafted circles, thus giving Putin more opportunity to continue his perfidy.   There certainly is historical precedent for this sort of response.

The koan of Easter opens the eyes.  To new life, yes, but also keeps our eyes open to the world’s pain and degradation, which is a koan in and of itself.  Embracing the Easter koan can help us to keep looking at the world’s darkness, so that our hearts can continue to feel the world’s pain.  And can serve as an impetus for us to respond with prayers, compassion, donations, action, advocacy and hope.

The Bombings We Are Not Paying Attention To

In the last few days the country, if not the world, has had a crash course in bunker buster bombs, ever since three of them literally crashed down on a nuclear weapons development facility in Fordow, Iran.  Delivered by a stealth B2 bomber, the pretext, subtext and...

No Permanent Allies? No Permanent Enemies?

No permanent allies. No permanent enemies. That was a foundational mantra of a ten day community organizing training that I received nearly 40 years ago.  It was a new idea for me, and I struggled with it. Growing up during the height of the cold war, I had been...

Love More. Resist More

  I have recently engaged my mind in a paradox that both strengthens my resolve and soothes my soul.  Love more.  Resist more.  Normally it is thought that loving and resisting need to be kept separate from one another:  you can’t love someone or something you...

A Spiritual Antidote to Fear

In 2008, toward the end of a three-day retreat in Canterbury Cathedral for about 700 Episcopal and Anglican bishops from around the world, Archbishop Rowan Williams finished his brilliant presentation on love and grace, and then asked us to reach out to another. Find...

Preferential Option for the Poor: A Needed Edit

“A preferential option for the poor” became a foundational component of Catholic Social teaching when the term was first issued by Latin American Catholic leaders and theologians in the mid-1960s. The phrase echoed the many admonitions from Jesus as recorded in the...

Emerging Moral Obscenity

It is a moral obscenity.  It is said by some that white Afrikaners in South Africa are the victims of genocide, but there is no data to support the claim. It is said that the cohort of Afrikaners coming to America are refugees, but there are indications that they are...

The Ordering of Love: a New Debate in the Culture Wars

Several decades ago, a national debate raged over a question that helped launch America’s ongoing culture war:  who can you love? One side was insistent that love – which would involve intimate sexual expression – should be confined to a man and a woman. A popular...

Make America Great Again: A Clamping Down on Paradigm Shift

In April of 1970 the United States decided to invade Cambodia, thus expanding the Vietnam War. I was nearing the end of my freshman year in college. Campuses around the country rose up in angry indignation. Protests were planned, strikes were proposed, marches were...

Teach Us to Care and Not to Care: T.S. Eliot

It is becoming harder and harder to achieve emotional, spiritual and in some cases physical distance from what is happening in this country.  I hear more and more people saying that they are reluctant to buy, sell or make changes to their home because the economy is...

Ep 22 – “The Greatest Unifier” with Rick Joyner

In this episode, I welcome Rick Joyner, a prominent Evangelical leader, author, public speaker, and founder of Morningstar Ministries. We explore how to respectfully build mutual understanding and work together across differences. Rick shares about his life-changing conversion, his strong support for President Trump, his belief in God as the greatest unifier, and the challenges and hopes that he sees for the country. We also discuss finding unity in diversity and the ongoing pursuit of liberty and justice for all.

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Join my mailing list to receive the latest blog updates.

You have Successfully Subscribed!