According to the Gospel of John the last words of Jesus were, "It is finished."

     Words like that were spoken as the Gonzaga-University of Connecticut game wound down, "It's all over for Gonzaga."

     I remembered the words in the gospel according to Yogi Berra, "It ain't over until it's over."

These are great texts for Easter. I'm vaguely sorry I won't be preaching these texts to three services as in ages past. But that's over too.

     It's been a good week for thinking of things temporal and everlasting. We've been working on our house. Actually, we've mainly watched the work—and paid for it. For 30 years our house has slowly been moving south as it lowered and raised itself according to the seasons. We got tired of changing the striker plates to keep the doors closed, and of patching cracks. The thing needed to be fixed if the house was to be kept off the road.

     Actually, since the road is 200 feet away I calculate it will take at least 300 years for the house to move that far. Who among us will ever know? Will the house last that long? Will our hill still be here? Will humans survive the millenium or Y2K or a giant asteroid, or an invisible microbe?

     Pondering the ages at Arches National Park during our winter trip, I was humbled (as if further humbling was needed!) by the thought that all I was seeing pre-existed the human species by eons. It is not much of a leap to think that they will outlast us just as far. The arrogance of our species in thinking that we are the end of creation—or that creation is done creating—is stupid. Despite our optimistic dreams, the most likely scenario for us is that we shall one day come to an end as a species. We shall be finished. It will all be over. Finished.

     Easter is on the side of Yogi Berra. "It ain't over until it's over."  Quantum physics (which I don't begin to understand) and cosmologists are beginning to agree with Yogi Berra as well. In another time they talked about end times for earth, galaxies and the universe. Now they are talking about an expanding universe. Whoever set off the Big Bang some-teen billion years ago probably said, "That does it. It is finished." But they were wrong. It was only the beginning.

So here is Easter, using the Resurrection as its metaphor, declaring that the death of Jesus was not the end everyone thought. The life that we call Christ was born out of that death and has impacted the world ever since. It wasn't over after all.

     It causes us to re-think our pessimism about the ultimate end of life. The message of the universe is that we are part of something grandly alive. For some reason our species has appeared with the equipment to be aware and conscious of our place, even if we don't fully understand it. Our momentary awareness is an amazing phenomenon in the ongoing process of creation. We are part of the eternal life of the universe. No one can take that fact away from us. Though our lives may disappear and their memory be lost to the records of this planet, we have had a great ride. It is something to celebrate and enjoy. It is our human opportunity to receive life with wonder and joy.

     I've always thought Christianity was self-centered in making personal resurrection the reward for virtuous life. Virtuous life should be its own reward. It would be more "Christian" to humbly receive the gift of life as something to be cherished and nurtured. Its goal should be to grow and evolve as part of life's ongoing creation. It should affirm the message of Resurrection; that

"In the bulb there is a flower, in the seed an apple tree; in cocoons, a hidden promise; butterflies will soon be free! In the cold of winter there's a spring that waits to be, unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see."