Sermon copyright (c) 2026 Dan Harper. As delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. The text below has not been proofread. The sermon as delivered contained substantial improvisation.
Sermon
Traditionally, Easter tells the story of the literal resurrection of Jesus, in which he rises from the dead after being executed. The traditional Easter story is ultimately a story of how an impossible situation can be transformed into a hopeful and joyful situation. And I don’t know about you, but given the news these days, I could use some hope and joy.
Now, we Unitarian Universalists happen to have a wide variety of theological viewpoints, and many of us interpret the Easter story in non-traditional ways. So this year, rather than offering just one interpretation of Easter, I’d like to give you four different takes on the basic message of Easter. We’re going to hear four poems by Unitarian Universalist poets, expressing beliefs ranging from liberal Christian, to very liberal post-Christian, to Neo-Pagan, to humanist. Most of these poems link Easter with the hope and joy and transformation of the spring season. Admittedly, if we were in the southern hemisphere where Easter comes in autumn, equating Easter with spring doesn’t work so well. But here we are in the northern hemisphere, so we can make a link between the Easter season, and the hope and joy and transformation of the spring season.
With that introduction, let’s listen as our worship associate, Mary T., reads the first poem:
“Dandelions” by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Welcome children of the Spring,
In your garbs of green and gold,
Lifting up your sun-crowned heads
On the verdant plain and wold.
As a bright and joyous troop
From the breast of earth ye came
Fair and lovely are your cheeks,
With sun-kisses all aflame.
In the dusty streets and lanes,
Where the lowly children play,
There as gentle friends ye smile,
Making brighter life’s highway
Dewdrops and the morning sun,
Weave your garments fair and bright,
And we welcome you to-day
As the children of the light.
Children of the earth and sun.
We are slow to understand
All the richness of the gifts
Flowing from our Father’s hand.
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, who lived from 1825 to 1911, represents typical Unitarian Christianity of the late nineteenth century. Although this poem doesn’t specifically mention Easter, it still feels like a Unitarian interpretation of Easter to me. Late-nineteenth century Unitarians were mostly interested in what Jesus did during his lifetime, and they thought a lot about how to live out his teachings in the present day. As a result, they didn’t spend much too time worrying about whether the Easter story of resurrection was literally true or whether it was a metaphor. Instead, they concerned themselves with trying to follow Jesus’s example — helping the poor, loving their neighbors, and so on.
I see this pragmatic Unitarian attitude in Frances Harper’s poem about dandelions. Instead of writing a poem about the showy flowers that well-to-do people from in their gardens, she turns her attention to the lowly dandelion. Dandelions grow everywhere, even in “the dusty streets and lanes, / Where lowly children play.” So it is that God brings the joy of springtime — the joy that we associate with Easter — to everyone on earth, whether rich or poor. As an African American, Frances Harper was fully aware that Black people in late nineteenth century America often didn’t have equal access to many things; yet God brings beauty and joy to all human beings equally, regardless of race. Even though this poem doesn’t specifically mention Easter, it tells us something important about Easter — that God wants everyone to have equal access to the joy of Easter. Frances Harper would tell us that if we find some people don’t have equal access to Easter joy, well then, that’s a problem caused by humans, not by God — which means it’s a problem that we humans can solve.
Now let’s hear another poem, “i thank You God for most this amazing day” by E. E. Cummings (poem is not included here due to copyright restrictions, but a legal audio version of the poem may be heard on the Poetry Foundation website)….
E. E. Cummings, who wrote this poem, was the son of a Unitarian minister. As an adult he had no formal religious affiliation, yet even so this poem sounds very Unitarian to me. It’s what you might call a post-Christian poem — the poem uses some standard Christian images, yet those images are interpreted in a very free manner. Cummings writes “i who have died am alive again today,” which sounds like the standard story of Easter (except that story is not usually told in the first person). Then Cummings takes this in a decidedly non-standard direction by saying: “this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth / day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay / great happening illimitably earth.” This is not orthodox Christian theology.
The final stanza of the poem, while clearly unorthodox, does carry an echo of some of Jesus’s words. In the synoptic gospels (that is, the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke in the Christian scriptures), Jesus often tells his followers to pay attention. For example, Jesus says: “After all, there is nothing hidden except to be brought to light, nor anything secreted away that won’t be exposed. If anyone here has two good ears, use them!” (Mark 4:22-23, Jesus Seminar translation). We hear lots of talk about the importance of mindfulness these days, but this is not a modern phenomenon. For thousands of years, prophets and sages have been telling us to wake up and pay attention. E. E. Cummings is echoing not only Jesus, but other prophets and sages, when he tells us, “now the ears of my ears awake and / now the eyes of my eyes are opened”. And what is Cummings urging us to pay attention to? — he is telling us to pay attention to wonder, and beauty — in short, he is telling us to wake up to joy. Or as Jesus put it, “Anyone here with two ears had better listen!” (Matt. 13:9, Jesus Seminar translation)
Now let’s hear another poem, this one by a Neo-Pagan Unitarian Universalist — “Seed for Spring Equinox / March 21” by Annie Finch. The poet says: “For the full effect, speak the poem aloud 3 times.”
Annie Finch is a Neo-Pagan; the Neo-Pagan religions reach back in Western culture to the ancient earth-centered religions that existed before Christianity took over. Like many Neo-pagans, Annie Finch recognizes eight main holy days in the year: the two equinoxes, the two solstices, and the four days that lie halfway between the equinoxes and solstices. Like many Neo-pagans, Annie Finch traces the roots of the Christian holiday of Easter back to an older pagan holiday called Ostara, which was connected with the spring equinox. The poem we just heard is an Ostara poem, and it’s also a spring equinox poem.
Finch also believes in the power of the spoken word. Poetry is not just something your high school English teacher made you read. Poetry contains a kind of magical power, the power of incantatory words spoken or chanted aloud. This may seem an alien concept to many of us today; but all human cultures have recognized the power of the spoken word. Our politicians still rely on the spoken word to sway the electorate. Religions rely on the spoken word through chanting scriptures, repeating mantras, saying prayers aloud, or even hearing sermons. People who are deaf might cast some doubt on whether the power of the spoken word is universal. In response, some religious traditions would reply: it’s the vibrational energy that’s important, or the communal aspect of speaking something aloud to a group of people, not the actual perceived sound.
Whatever you might believe, or disbelieve, about the mystical powers of poetry, this poem by Annie Finch is — to my way of thinking — a poem about hope, and ultimately a poem about joy. The poem is spoken from the point of view of a seed that has been planted and is beginning to sprout — therein lies the hope, for as any gardener can tell you, the act of planting a seed is an expression of hope for the future. And then there’s the moment when the seed’s “head and shoulders past the open crust / dried by spring wind” and the new plant emerges into the spring sunshine — this is a moment of joy. By speaking the poem aloud, we enter into that mindset of transformation, and perhaps that may help us to transform ourselves — a hopeful thought.
Now let’s hear one final poem, from the 1923 book “Spring and All” by William Carlos Williams:
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast — a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines —
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches —
They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind —
Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined —
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf
But now the stark dignity of
entrance — Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken
This poem by William Carlos Williams contains no mention of Easter or Ostara, no mention of Jesus or God. Nevertheless, it seems to me it poem tells much the same story as the other poems we have heard. There is a sense of hope for the future, the hope that comes every spring as the world emerges from winter cold and darkness. There is a sense of joy, the joy of new life, of new beginnings — we might even say, the joy that comes with the sense of resurrection of the natural world from the dead time of winter. Above all, there is a sense of the importance of paying attention. Pay attention to “the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf”, for in that tiny, easily-overlooked detail we can find a revelation of what is to come.
Williams was a physician, and as is true of many physicians he had a scientific outlook. His poetry reflects that scientific outlook in the careful attention to small details, and the ability to connect those small details to a larger whole. Our culture likes to pretend that science and religion are opposed to one another, but a poem like this shows that science and religion can find unity in a sense of wonder — unity in the joy that can come from paying close and careful attention to the world around us.
As a Unitarian Universalist, I used to spend a lot of time thinking about deep theological questions like the existence of God, the existence of the historical Jesus, the relative truth values of the world’s religions, and so on. These will always be attractive questions, questions which have been worthy of the attention of some of the greatest minds through human history. As I get older, I find myself less interested in questions that (quite apparently) won’t be answered in my lifetime. So I have no longer have much interest in trying to settle, once and for all, all the debates and questions about the story of Easter. Instead, I find myself increasingly adopting the attitude that I sense in the William Carlos Williams poem. I spent yesterday taking a class on the graminoids, a group of plants that include grasses, rushes, and sedges. Talk about paying close attention! — we spent much of the class looking at the seeds of plants through a dissecting microscope. And talk about hope for the future! — we examined the fine structures that have evolved to allow the seeds a maximum chance of creating new life. This seemed a worthy and appropriate way for a Unitarian Universalist like me to spend Easter weekend. So you can see, science and religion are not so far apart as some would have us believe.
So there you have it — four very different poems about hope and joy and transformation. Believe whatever you wish about God and Jesus and Easter; we Unitarian Universalists have no required beliefs. Believe what you want, but pay close attention to the world. And if you’re willing to pay close attention to the world, no matter who you are — no matter how much money you have, or what race or ethnicity you are, or whom you love, or what your gender might be — your attention will be rewarded with amazement and transformation and hope and joy; for the wonder and beauty of the world remains universally open to all.