“Beloved, we are God’s children now;
what we will be has not yet been revealed.”
(1 John 3:2)

Over the last few years, I’ve often heard church leaders refer to Episcopalians, or to Christians in general, as “an Easter people.” It’s a phrase that’s surfaced in my mind during the last week, as we’ve celebrated Easter Sunday and I’ve begun planning for the coming weeks. During this Eastertide—the fifty-day season between Easter Day and the Ascension—our readings on Sunday mornings are taken from the Book of Acts and the First Letter of John, along with the Gospel of John, and in many ways each series of readings is an answer to the question, “What does it mean to be an ‘Easter People?'” In other words, what does it mean to live as a community shaped by the Resurrection?

I was so intrigued by the question that I decided to do something this Eastertide that I don’t usually do, and preach a sermon series. 1 John is one of my favorite books of the Bible, and so I thought we’d stick with it through the season, asking each week: What can this letter to a small group of Christian disciples, two millennia ago, teach us about what it means to be “an Easter people” today?

As is often the case with quotable quotes, the origins of the phrase “Easter people” are unclear. But its most beautiful and defining use comes from a homily given by the late Pope John Paul II during a visit to Australia in 1986:

We do not pretend that life is all beauty. We are aware of darkness and sin, of poverty and pain. But we know Jesus has conquered sin and passed through his own pain to the glory of the Resurrection. And we live in the light of his Paschal Mystery – the mystery of his Death and Resurrection. “We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song!” We are not looking for a shallow joy but rather a joy that comes from faith, that grows through unselfish love, that respects the “fundamental duty of love of neighbour, without which it would be unbecoming to speak of Joy.” We realize that joy is demanding; it demands unselfishness; it demands a readiness to say with Mary: “Be it done unto me according to thy word.”

I am reminded of my favorite words in our burial service, which come at the Commendation, at the very end. When we have said all that we can say, and offered all our prayers, I walk to stand next to the casket. And the final prayer commending our beloved to God begins:

You only are immortal, the creator and maker of mankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth shall we return. For so did you ordain when you created me, saying,
“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

“Yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” This is what it is to be an Easter people. To rejoice defiantly, in the face of a world of suffering and death. To rejoice, in the faith that this is not the end. To acknowledge a mystery that we can never understand, to commit ourselves to live up to a love that we can never deserve, to stand at the edge of the grave and proclaim God’s praise.

It is not easy to love our neighbors as ourselves. It is not easy to practice rejoicing in a world of pain. It is not easy to be made of dust, as we are. And yet we cannot choose to be immortal instead. We cannot choose to remain invulnerable. We cannot choose not to suffer, in this life; we can only choose whether to stay silent and speechless, or whether to be an Easter people, whether, together, to make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!