a blessing for easter Sunday

It is an astonishing thing to behold:
That a seed falls, and entombed there in the damp earth
it swells and cracks open, unfolding to reveal
a tender root searching downward,
a bright shoot rising upward toward the light,
becoming this material wonder we call a plant.

Just so, the physical body of Jesus was entombed, hidden away,
along with all hope that the world could ever change,
could ever be freed from its miserable cycles of destruction and decay.

And yet
and yet.

That Easter morning to his bewildered friends,
Jesus burst forth from the grave
changed but still recognizable, eating and drinking,
a physical presence that they might believe.

His body reassembled at a cellular level
by regenerative power beyond their comprehension,
reminding them “I am the resurrection and the Life.”

It’s a husbandry of love, that in the season’s fullness
the rescue would be accomplished,
for our helpless earth–for all those on it and those under it.
Life came, to lift us into Himself.
Alleluia!