Easter Day 2020

The Day of Resurrection: Easter Day 2020 April 12, 2020 I’ve been having a weekly Zoom call with some of my closest friends and classmates from seminary. Every week, we gather virtually, and we talk about how we are doing and then we talk about the readings for the coming Sunday. (It has been one of many life-giving moments for me during this strange season.) A couple of weeks ago, I was shocked when one of our group told us that he was trying to convince his bishop to let him postpone Easter until his congregation could gather again and celebrate it together. As I’ve thought of this over the course of these past couple of weeks, I think about the song of his own longing that was revealed in that statement (which may find echoes in some of our own hearts). How can it really be Easter without….fill in the blank here. (New Easter clothes. Easter Egg hunts. The flowering of the cross. The Easter hymns. The Eucharist. The Easter brunch or lunch with extended family…) But the joyfully shocking truth of Easter is that resurrection will happen, whether we are ready for it or not. In fact, this year, we are probably more similar to those first followers of Jesus’ as they encountered the shock of the resurrection than we have ever been in any of our lifetimes. Still reeling from the shock and the sadness of Jesus’s sudden and violent death; afraid for their own lives, so they have locked themselves in their own homes for safety; they creep out out when it is still dark (with gloves and mask in place?) to discover that the tomb is empty (just like our churches today). The body of Jesus is nowhere to be found. And then they are more saddened; more shocked; more dismayed; more frightened. Just when they thought it couldn’t get any worse—the tomb is empty. So then they run. Mary Magdalene runs to get Peter and John. Peter and John race back, discovering for themselves that the tomb is, in fact empty. And then, they go back home. But Mary Magdalene stays. She stays to grieve some more outside the empty tomb, and she encounters two angels, and she encounters the Risen Christ (who tells her she’s got to maintain appropriate social distancing). And he sends her back to the other disciples with a message, and so she goes back and tells them, “I have seen the Lord.” And you know what happens? Nothing. A week later, they are still huddled behind the locked doors of their homes because of their fear, but the risen Christ doesn’t leave them there. He appears to them where they are and continues to help them to encounter the resurrection. In fact, it really isn’t until after Jesus’s ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that those scared, fragmented disciples become transformed into the resurrection community that will spread the good news to the ends of the earth and will transform the world around them from their day all the way to our own. Even without the normal trappings that we have come to expect and enjoy, resurrection still happens and will continue to happen. We need this day, now more than ever, to remember the power of the love of God; a love that is stronger than loneliness, than sickness; a love that is stronger than fear or the exhaustion that comes from too-much-togetherness. This day, we remember and celebrate the strange truth and the joy of the resurrection: that nothing that happens to us or that we do can separate us from the love of God, and that God’s love is stronger than absolutely anything. Even death. A couple of weeks ago, I came across a blessing I had shared on March 27, 2016: It is titled EASTER BLESSING by the Late Irish priest and poet John O’Donohue. It’s from his Dawn Mass Reflections at Corcomroe Abbey. "On this Easter morning, let us look again at the lives we have been so generously given and let us let fall away the useless baggage that we carry -- old pains, old habits, old ways of seeing and feeling -- and let us have the courage to begin again. Life is very short, and we are no sooner here than it is time to depart again, and we should use to the full the time that we still have. We don't realize all the good we can do. A kind, encouraging word or helping hand can bring many a person through dark valleys in their lives. We weren't put here to make money or to acquire status or reputation. We were sent here to search for the light of Easter in our hearts, and when we find it we are meant to give it away generously. The dawn that is rising this Easter morning is a gift to our hearts and we are meant to celebrate it and to carry away from this holy, ancient place the gifts of healing and light and the courage of a new beginning." How are you called to search for the light of Easter in your heart and then give that light away generously? What is the new beginning to which you may be called once you discover the resurrection gifts of healing and light and courage during this strange season?