For the last two or three months very often I’ve been electrically charged. I couldn’t have noticed that unless I touched metal things. An instant discharge, although not dangerous, has always been a highly unpleasant experience. So unpleasant that I’ve developed a weird custom of a slow and cautious touch, preparing myself mentally to stand the expected discharge. All in vain – it’s still similarly unpleasant. That is the dark side of electricity, and it can be much worse. From time to time we learn about someone killed or burnt alive by high voltage. ‘Electric chair’ certainly isn’t the most fashionable and desirable piece of home furniture, however still on offer in few states in the USA. Electricity can be fatally dangerous.
That dangerous thing, electricity, is useless unless it’s being processed. But when it happens, that dangerous thing, electricity, becomes something providing comfort, security and somehow, happiness. It keeps our homes warm and bright, it keeps our food fresh or allows us to cook it, it drives our means of communication… The list is virtually infinite. But – let me repeat that – it must be processed in order to make it useful.
Those rather long biblical readings we’ve just listened to have something in common: they promise consolation provided by God. When do we need to be comforted? The answer is obvious: surely when we are unhappy. Those readings reflect a more general truth about our lives, and that truth isn’t particularly pleasant. God doesn’t offer us a cheap consolation with a tap on our shoulder and words: ‘it’s going to be all right.’ God offers us a way of processing our everyday anxieties, problems, frustrations; turning all those unpleasant experiences and moments into something valuable. The resurrection of Christ shows us that this is possible. Surely the scenes of his passion and death quenched all hope in his friends’ hearts; there was nothing left when his dead body was buried. All that hectic commotion in the morning of the resurrection was about finding the dead body that disappeared from the tomb.
But Jesus managed to process that lethal bite of death into life and light. Those who follow him in faith are not freed from all difficulties and unpleasantness of everyday life. But all of that is processed and turned into something valuable. Thanks to Jesus’ resurrection that dangerous thing, life, can turn out to be something pleasant and enjoyable, reaching even beyond our death.