We are Easter People

We are Easter People!!!
 
Every once in a while, you are called to sit back and examine your life.  The other week as I was cleaning my house, out fell this obscure picture of a young man.  For a moment I did not realize who it was.  It was a 12- or 13-year-old in a cream sport coat and a fancy shirt.  As I looked harder, this person I did not initially recognize was, in fact, me.
 
After the surprise wore off, I began to think of how much different I am today than I was back then, not just with physical changes, but in my intellectual and spiritual growth.  While in many ways I am the same, there is no way I could ever go back.  I know too much, and life’s experiences have taught me lessons that would help me make different decisions. 
 
We are Easter people, people of the Resurrection.  When we were baptized, we were initiated into the body of Christ.  This means that we have been united with Christ, made one with his fold. While we hope for good in our lives here, we know because of what we have seen and heard and how we have grown in our faith that we are living our lives into the glory of something more. 
 
Being people of the Resurrection, we are called not to be stagnant but to be ardent and active.  We are not called to be separate from the world, waiting and hoping; rather, we are ever growing and changing.  As it was written in the Hebrew Testament:
 
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.  What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with.”
 
Life is full of change and growth.  Who we are today is not the same as who we were yesterday or the day before, or even tomorrow.  While it is sad to let our old selves go, it is a celebration to grow in our life with Christ and the Holy Spirit.