A Different Kind of Easter
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Grace and peace to you as we enter into this season of Easter. I know many of us felt like this was a strange Easter Sunday. No sacred spaces full to the brim with white lilies and jubilant people in their Easter finery. No full-throated singing of Christ the Lord is Risen Today or the Hallelujah Chorus complete with blaring trumpets. No community Easter egg hunts and Easter feasts with tables full of friends and family.
It feels odd. And yet, it feels oddly true. It feels true to this moment of global pandemic, when we are collectively walking in the valley of the shadow of death, when so many are suffering and afraid. As is so often the case, the liturgical calendar does not always align with our lived experience, and this Easter, this is especially true. In many ways, it feels like we are still in the Lenten wilderness, at the foot of the cross, preparing bodies for burial, or waiting at home in the confusing in-between.
It is also more true to the Biblical stories of the post-resurrection appearances. Just like Jesus came into the world in relative obscurity, he reappears in utter mystery. There are no large crowds, no trumpet fanfares, no crosses transformed with Easter lilies. There are weeping women going to tend the body of their deceased friend, disciples locked behind closed doors in fear, others walking and talking about the strange turn of events. And when the risen Christ appears to them, he is met with some mix of confusion, skepticism, fear, and joy. It takes them some time to recognize he is both the same, wounded Teacher, and an altogether new, risen Christ present with them. It takes them longer still to figure out how to live in this new post-resurrection reality, as a crucified and risen Lord wasn’t at all what they had in mind for ushering in a new kingdom.
I actually find this a much more compelling and hopeful way into Easter. This is not us in our Easter best, with moods that may or may not rise to the Hallelujah chorus. This is our Beloved Friend and Lord coming to us, as we are locked in fear, blind in grief, foggy in confusion or whatever the case may be. This is Christ coming to speak peace to us, to show us how wounds can be transformed, to breathe new life into our weary souls. Maybe, just maybe Easter is not a dramatic, triumphant event, but a quietly transforming encounter with One who meets us where we are, calls us by name, and beckons us into the Christ journey of death and resurrection. This to me is profoundly good news.
Even and especially now.
I’ve been saying in certain circles that I feel like I personally and we collectively are stuck in Holy Saturday. That perhaps this pandemic and quarantine is the in-between time, when things have died or fallen apart, but it's not yet clear if or how they will be resurrected or put back together again. I’ve been trying to make peace with this empty, unsettling liminal space, the not knowing and not being able to control what happens from here. And because we know how the story continues, and I have experienced resurrection after other deaths and waiting times in my own life, I find some measure of hope and comfort in this.
And yet, that identification is based on too linear a progression, too neat a formula of how God works, like first this, then that. Haven’t we had the experience where death and life are present at the same time, where we feel both grief and gratitude, suffering and joy, are aware of both the already and the not yet, all rolled into one blessed human experience? The truth is that while I continue to mourn the loss and devastation wreaked by this coronavirus, I celebrate the gifts offered in it. I’ve heard myself and others giving thanks for the slowing down, the reaching out, the witnessing of spring in all its glory, the more intimate and vulnerable sharing, the letting go of past wrongs, the increased neighborliness, the blessed recognition that we are all in this together, the longing for different ways to live together on the other side of all this. We may still be grieving and waiting, but it’s hard to deny the light streaming through the cracks in our doors.
Friend, wherever you are, whatever mental, emotional or spiritual state you feel locked in, I pray somehow that Christ gets in, speaking peace to you, and breathing new life into your weary and wounded soul.