Resurrection among the ruins

Can there be resurrection
among the ruins?

Dare we imagine new life
rising from these streets of death?

Might hope be born
in the face of such despair?

Is it possible that desecration
could give way to creation anew?

Were these the questions haunting the prophet
standing in the ruins of Jerusalem,
a city that never could live up to its name,
that never was a city of shalom?

Can we join Isaiah in the ruins of Jerusalem?
Can his alluring oracle of resurrection
speak to us in the ruins of our lives?

We know that it will take a lot of doing
to see this undoing through.
We know that in the face of such brokenness 
we need nothing less than a new heavens and a new earth.

In the ruins of our all-embracing homelessness,
in the wake of the murder of home,
can we get a glimpse of Isaiah’s vision
of home restored?

From the bombed-out cities of Ukraine
to the mass murders in Sudan,
from hunger in Burkina Faso
to violence and displacement in Myanmar,
in the ruins of Gaza, 
the constant assault on the West Bank,
can we imagine resurrection? 

Haunted by terrible memories of violent home-breaking
in our own lives,
in our history,
can we be liberated
to an imagination of homecoming?

Under the oppressive weight of sorrow and guilt
can joy be reborn?

Can joy and delight
be reborn in the ruins?
   
Yes, says the prophet,
but it all hangs on two words.

“No more.”

To embrace resurrection,
to confess that Christ has risen,
to sing hallelujah in the ruins,
is to say “no more.”

This is a defiant hallelujah.
A hallelujah against the odds.
A hallelujah that says “yes” to resurrection,
and “no more” to the forces of death.

No more shall the sound of weeping be heard.
No more weeping in the ruins.
No more weeping for those who are lost.
No more weeping overcome by anxiety.

No more shall the cry of distress rise in the streets.
No more crying out in hunger.
No more keening over dead children.
No more cruelty sanctioned by the state.

No more lives cut short because aid was refused.
No more child mortality for lack of care.
No more young people cut down by street violence.
No more premature death of the elderly.

No more shall houses be built and folks remain homeless.
No more unaffordable housing.
No more displacement. No more refugees.

No more cheap farm labour.
No more extractive cash cropping.
No more destructive agriculture.
No more food insecurity.

No more shall labour be in vain.
No more sweatshops.   
No more exploitation.
No more unemployment.

No more children born for calamity.
No more children raised in the ruins.
No more children buried beneath the rubble.
No more children sacrificed before the gods of nation and race.

No more.

Can we imagine such a thing?
Can we imagine such a resurrection?
Can we imagine such a depth of shalom?
Can we imagine a culture, a city, of such peace?

Here is an audacious vision of a city of delight,
in which there is an end to neglect and injustice,
an end to oppression and violence,
in the rebirth of generosity, care and justice.

Can we imagine a world of creational peace?
Can we imagine a healed ecology of radical restoration?
Can we imagine ecological grief restored in delight?
Can we imagine this world restored as home for all creatures?

Not without a new heavens and a new earth.
Not without resurrection life overcoming death.
Not without resurrection permeating all of creation.
And not without a resurrection spirituality.

So there is one more “no more” that is necessary.
One more healing, without which the vision fails.
One more resurrection that is at the heart of it all.
The resurrection of the Presence in our midst.

No more silence.

“Before they will call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.”

A resurrection spirituality.
A God who listens.
A God who answers.
A God in the ruins.

Dare we hope for such a thing?
Dare we live in such a hope?
Dare we not?

Practice resurrection.
Among the ruins.