A One‑Time Miracle

“In the end, everything will be all right.

If it’s not all right, it’s not the end.”

·       Fernando Sabino

I enjoy attending my grandkids events. I love seeing the smiles on their faces at the end. They are so proud of themselves, as well they should be. I am there to let them know they are important to me and that I am proud of their efforts. I am also very happy when the event ends because I get to stand up from the bleacher seats or metal folding chairs. Oh, my aching bee-hind.

I have learned that I have to be careful not to react to Easter in the same way. It is very easy for me to sit there (on a hard wooden pew), and watch Jesus suffer, die, and rise on Easter and think to myself, “Good for him.” Apparently Fr. Richard Rohr has experienced the same thing. He recently wrote, “The message of Easter is not primarily a message about Jesus’ body, although we’ve been taught to limit it to this one-time “miracle.” We’ve been educated to expect a lone, risen Jesus saying, “I rose from the dead; look at me!” I’m afraid that’s why many people, even Christians, don’t really seem to get too excited about Easter.”

Easter is meant to remind us that the heart of Christian faith is not a single event, but an experience; an encounter with the living God who brings life out of death. Over time, we have built institutions and structures around Jesus: rituals, rules, ministries, and traditions. These can be beautiful gifts, but they should not be the only thing. In fact, if they become the only thing, we cannot truly encounter Christ.

When we treat Jesus as the only one who ever dies, rises, and returns to God, we risk imagining Easter as something that happened to him alone. We celebrate the feast, we sing the alleluias, and we assume that participation in the ritual makes us members of some sort of special group. But Jesus never came to be the exception. He came to reveal the pattern. It is the pattern of my life. Of all our lives.

Jesus’ resurrection was not a one‑time miracle; it is the shape of everyday life. On Easter morning, when we proclaim “Alleluia,” we are not only celebrating what happened to Jesus, we are celebrating what God is doing in each of us, in our world, and in all creation each and every day and each and every moment. If we are aware, we can see that our life moves in constant cycles of dying and rising, losing, and being restored, breaking, and being made whole. Resurrection is just the way things work!

By raising Jesus, God shows us what God always does with suffering and loss: God transforms it. What we crucify by our choices, by the world’s cruelty, by the weight of life, is not lost. God raises it. God renews it. God brings forth something we could not have imagined.

Of course, this requires faith. We know the ache of losing people we love, places we cherish, dreams we held close. Yet Jesus stands as the epitome of hope, the guarantee that no grief, no failure, no ending is ever the final word. To believe in Jesus is to trust that our lives are going somewhere, that God is carrying us forward, and that grace and mercy is always at work, even when we cannot see it.

Easter proclaims the triumph of universal grace. Not just the salvation of Jesus’ body, but the promise that all creation is being drawn into God’s life. Easter is meant to form a people who refuse despair, who resist cynicism, and who dare to believe that love will have the last word. A people of hope.

So today, as we greet the dawn of resurrection, together we proclaim with confidence: Love is going to win. Life is going to win.

Every Day.

© 2026 by Timothy J. Doppel

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