I suppose it could be a matter of getting older. I do notice the impact of the years. I'm a slower runner than I once was. I injure more easily and heal more slowly, the typical stuff. But I do not think age explains my tiredness.
I wonder if the problem is not related to Easter, but not with regards to all the energy expended because of the season. I wonder if my tiredness does not come from a nagging sense that the victory of Easter feels hollow.
I say that out of a my understanding of just what the victory of Easter actually entails. I realize the this victory often gets reduced to little more than personal immortality. Believe the right things and get your ticket to heaven. But such a reduction requires ignoring a great deal of what Jesus said and did and commanded.
Jesus came proclaiming God's rule, the kingdom. This very political term speaks of a society arranged according to very different values and principles than those of most societies. This kingdom is especially concerned with those at the bottom and those who are outsiders. It is rooted in an ethic of radical love, one that loves even enemies. It calls for self giving and self denial, behavior clearly seen in Jesus' own willingness to give his own life.
The way Jesus teaches is thought to be foolish and ridiculous by the world. (See 1 Corinthians 1:18ff.) Anyone who fully embraces the way of Jesus will be torn apart by the world, which is precisely what happens to Jesus. The world won and Jesus lost. Yet the resurrection insists otherwise.
And so we celebrate that Christ is risen, risen indeed. We sing our Alleluias. And then we continue to live as though the world had triumphed. We hate our enemy and pray for victory against them. We build a society that celebrates wealth and goes to great lengths to protect it. We imagine that our ease and comfort matters more than the life and death struggles of those who are different from us or have the misfortune to live in other lands.
I do not say such things meaning they are someone else's problems. I too celebrate Easter and then live as though it never happened. I worship at the idol of wealth and possessions. I'm a willing participant in our consumerist culture of "more." And my life has more than a few people that I cannot seem to love or pray for as Jesus commanded.
Sometimes I think my tiredness is a matter of despair, and I want God to do something about it. I want God to straighten me out, straighten the Church out, straighten the world out. And I'm tired of waiting,.. Tired of waiting.
When I find myself experiencing this sort of tiredness, I sometimes find comfort in knowing that my longing for God to act is a not uncommon refrain in the Bible. The phrase, "How long, O LORD" occurs over and over in the psalms. Indeed the psalm of lament is the the most common form in the psalter. (Ps 13 How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? Ps. 35 How long, O LORD, will you look on? Ps. 89 How long, O LORD? Will you hide yourself forever?)
Jesus goes so far as to announce God's favor on those who are tired of waiting, saying that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who long for the world to be set right, are blessed. And Easter proclaims that Jesus' view of things is correct. Yet the world, and I, keep living in ways that suggest otherwise.
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In the gospels of Matthew and Mark, Jesus begins his ministry with a call to "Repent." There is change required if we are to be part of the new thing Jesus is doing. But I cling to the ways of the world. I resist the ways of the kingdom Jesus proclaims, even if those ways triumphed over death itself. I struggle against the new life Jeasus invites me to enjoy. Maybe that's we I'm so tired.
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