Rejecting literal readings of what we insist is only a myth, we look to nature and religions close to the earth for alternative stories of the season.

Explaining away troublesome details—the empty tomb, Jesus' appearance to the women and the disciples—we tell a story that appeals to reason.

Surprised nevertheless by the call of the season waking an ancient longing in our heart, we pause from our explanations to ponder the stirring.

Unwilling to quiet the voice crying for rebirth, fresh starts, new life,
We remember times we have been as if dead, yet still our hearts beat and we moved upon the earth.

So we set our disbelief aside, if only for a moment, in a day, in a season.

Reason tells us life precedes death and death itself is final. But our experience of second chances, cures, recovery, forgiveness and reconciliation tell a different story.

Even when life as we have known it is destroyed forever and hope has abandoned us, somehow how Life has held us and breathed us into new being;
Life has called us to rise in fullness: triumphant, humble, grateful.

Insistent Life who will not let us go, who even at our most broken, most wretched,
Call us out of the tomb,

Now the stories merge, myth and science, history and experience, and we whisper alleluia. Alleluia that You are. Alleluia that we are. Alleluia life-everlasting. Amen.