Growing up, almost every Easter, my family told the story of the year that one of the boys at church saw me, a young toddler, with no eggs in my basket at the church Easter Egg hunt. Seeing this, the boy came over to me and shared his eggs with me. Kansas Henderson, wherever you are, you should know you are still a legend at my parents house- some 30 years later.
For the bulk of my child-hood, I have memories of frilly dresses, shiny shoes, and the Easter Egg Hunt at Rick and Dee’s house. It was tradition, and as a child, it instilled in me what community can look and feel like. Each year, we knew that after service on Easter Sunday, we would be hunting for eggs in the Berman’s back yard, and the church would gather together in the gift of hospitality, and celebrate the Risen Lord with laughter, joy and excitement.
When the Berman’s moved, that tradition changed, and as I grew up, hunting for Easter Eggs lost its appeal. But when I moved away from home for college, I found myself suddenly missing that tradition, or anything that felt familiar, and was overjoyed to find an Easter basket mailed to me from my folks.
I feel those same tugs of longing for traditions and community as we approach Easter this year. As we all are bound to our homes for at least another 30 days, I am home-sick for the joy, laughter and excitement I experienced as a child, but more than that, I am grieving that for the first time in my life, I won’t be celebrating Easter in a church, with people, with songs, and all of the other markers of what has become for me, a lifetime of tradition.
As we approach Palm Sunday, and enter into Holy Week, I feel grief in ways I have never experienced in Lent. I feel the pains of loss: of routine, of schedule, of expectations, of long awaited plans and travel. And I feel the pains of death, as the numbers of the dying are rising, and just today, I got word of the first person I knew dying from this brutal virus.
These days are hard.
But perhaps, just maybe, we are being offered the chance to establish a new tradition, or a new set of traditions…ones that are based around the awareness of our own mortality, and our deep need for hope, joy, grace, and one another.
I also think that maybe, for the first time, I am going to experience Easter morning with the awareness of my deep need for Jesus in my life.
I know that may sound silly coming from a pastor- but the truth is that I think, on most days, I have myself fooled into thinking that I have this all figured out…and while I discern and pray, I don’t know that I have ever spent much time really aware and truly, deeply, grateful that Jesus died so that we could all have life abundant.
In real ways, this pandemic is forcing me to sit with, grapple with, and then accept and receive the gift of grace, the gift of new life, the gift of Easter. And with that comes deep grief, and deep joy.
Emily Scott, a pastor who inspires me on the daily, shared these words today:
Emily is right, Christ didn’t emerge from the tomb with smoke and lights, and a full band. He didn’t emerge in flashes of lightening or signs of ultimate power…no, He returned back to his loved ones, at dawn, and then again over a meal. And the truth is, Jesus didn’t need a church, or even a rousing choral rendition of “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” to emerge from the tomb. Jesus came back quietly, intimately, and entered immediately back into relationship with his beloveds.
Maybe it isn’t going to be the same, the truth is that Easter this year will be painfully different- but maybe, in the midst of our separation, we might find ways to cultivate new traditions that will bind us together- and allow each of us to experience the Risen Lord coming back quietly among us, entering into our lives when we need Him most.
On Easter morning, may we find ourselves greeting the new dawn and rejoice that the stone has been rolled away- the stone that has kept us from seeing the ways we belong to one another, the stone that allowed us to take so much for granted, the stone that has kept us from understanding our own dependence on grace.
I yearn for the stone to be rolled away so that we can greet a life anew, and when this is all over, and we return to one another, I yearn for the world to embrace the gift of Easter- not just in frilly dresses, or Easter Eggs, but in ways that allow us to more fully see the humanity in one another, for us to see the world as God sees it, and each one of us- as beloved, deserving of life abundant.
I yearn for the world to confront the injustice that this pandemic has brought to the forefront, for us to shift our priorities, and for us to realize that the gifts of this time, while it has been brutal, stressful and hard, the gifts of connection and humanity remain- and the truth that we belong to one another is all the more clear. And may we continue to seek to encounter Jesus gathered with us, in small, quiet places.
And in the coming days, as we greet Easter and struggle to embrace the hope and joy amidst the grip of this virus, I wish you all peace, and a blessing from the Iona Community:
Where water meets land- connection. 