I've been reflecting on the cross a lot lately. On the other side of it is the resurrection.

It is, if you think about it, a remarkably bold claim — one that will most likely never be proven, and that resists easy explanation. At its heart it is a mystery, dealing in love and in what lies beyond. It is the faith claim that there is more to this world than we can see or know — recognizing, of course, that to say the opposite, that there is nothing beyond, is also a faith claim.

Many years ago, my friend Herb Meza preached a beautiful Easter sermon. In it he reflected on how life is full of hints that point to something more beyond us. He wrote about how science has discovered colors beyond what the eye can see, octaves above and below what the ear can hear, and findings from physics that stretch the imagination of even the greatest scientists. He spoke too about his own mother — how on the very day he was wounded in battle during World War II, she fell into a deep depression, though she had no way of knowing what had happened to her son.

He wrote: "Everywhere we turn there are hints that there is more — hints of life and power and energy. But even if there were no hints, there is that instinct within humans that points to more. Pascal once said that God had planted this instinct in our very souls, and no matter how much we try to disbelieve it, it keeps creeping up and out when we come face to face with the mystery of death."

The resurrection is the triumphant affirmation of something we have never proven but instinctively know — that our small world of time and space is but a fragment of something far larger than we can perceive with our eyes, hear with our ears, or touch with our senses.

Herb ended his sermon this way: "I believe that one day every bruise, every cancer cell, every blind eye, every limp and every lump will be set right. One day every embarrassment and every rejection and every hurt we have suffered will give way to glory. I do not know how God will deal with all the shabbiness, the failures, the betrayal. It surely must hurt God. But I know God is loving and forgiving. One day, every moment of hoping against hope will be rewarded."

Prayer: We thank you, Loving God, for your promise to hold us even into eternity. Help us to believe even when we have not yet seen. We claim the promise today that in life and in death, we belong to you. Amen.

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