Easter Sunday

One of the finest gifts I ever received was the opportunity to do graduate work in psychology under the tutelage of the psychiatrist, Victor Frankl. His best-selling book, Man’s Search for Meaning, describes his experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz. Considered to be a classic, the book tells painfully how Frankl’s fellow prisoners coped with the horrors of a concentration camp.

The question driving the entire book is: How were people able to maintain any sense of hope while surrounded by so much anguish and terror?

The answer Frankl ultimately gives is that people can come to a deeper appreciation of the spiritual dimension of life when all hope seems otherwise lost.

One story illustrates this realization powerfully.

Frankl was particularly affected by a woman who knew she was going to die very soon. And yet, remarkably, she was calm, even cheerful. Frankl asked this woman how she could maintain this spirit in the light of what she knew awaited her.

He writes: “Pointing through the window of the hut, she said, ‘This tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness. I often talk to this tree’, she said to me …. I asked her if the tree replied. ‘Yes’, she said. What did it say to her? She answered, ‘It said to me, I am here. I am life. Eternal life.’”

This woman’s approach to certain death was crucial to the major theme of Frankl’s book, namely, that even in the direst of circumstances, even in our darkest and most troubling moments, we almost intuitively look for meaning, for something that gives us hope and promise.

In a word, we look for Easter.

Remember: The apostles had scattered; Peter had betrayed Jesus; Jesus was alone before the Sanhedrin and Pilate; soldiers whipped him and crowned him with thorns; the crowd mocked and cried “Crucify him.” Darkness pervaded the scene. Jesus died alone on a cross.

Afterwards, the flame of hope barely flickered. Jesus’ followers had gone into hiding in fear they would be next.

Then something miraculous happened.

A woman, Mary of Magdala, crashed through the door where the disciples were hiding and breathlessly spoke the most astonishing words ever:

“I have seen the Lord!”

Human history has never been the same.

Perhaps even more remarkable is that Mary did not recognize Jesus at first. The tomb was empty. Frantically she wondered where his body had been taken. Her grief was great and her eyes filled with tears. She was crying so openly that two strangers, angels, appeared and one said to her: “Woman, why are you weeping?”

All of us can identify with the overwhelming power of grief upon hearing that someone dear to us has died. We wonder how life can ever be the same again.

But then Jesus Himself asked the same question: “Woman, why are you weeping?”

Notice that the first words spoken by the risen Jesus were about the meaning of human tears.

But, Mary was still confused. Jesus then spoke one more word: “Mary.” It stopped her in her tracks. It made her gasp in awe. She recognized the sound of her name in that voice.

This was the turning point. This was the moment the resurrection became fully evident. This was when human history was changed.

And this is also when Jesus’ command to “go to my brothers (and sisters)” broke through. And the disciples did just that. They told the story that has been passed on to us to this day.

It’s the same story that Mary of Magdala and the woman in Auschwitz had each discovered.

“I am here. There is life. Eternal life.”

We call it Easter.

Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.

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4/15/2007