April Thoughts
It’s not quite Easter yet. For anyone who is struggling to keep track in these time-warpy days of quarantine, on the calendar, Easter comes in 11 days. It’s not quite Palm Sunday yet, either. On the calendar, that comes in 4 days.
Before we get to Easter, it’s typical for church people to contemplate Holy Week—to reconstruct and even simulate the dark days Jesus experienced during the last week of his life on earth. The glorious celebration of Easter doesn’t make much sense until we’ve gained some measure of understanding about sacrifice, or suffering, or pain, or abandonment, or longing, or fear, or upheaval, or death, or profound sorrow. This is why our Moravian Christian tradition immerses us in the most graphic, most difficult chapters of Jesus’ story in the time between Palm Sunday and Easter.
How ironic that the predicted worst days of The Virus Crisis will coincide with our observance of Holy Week. The somber episodes we often try to replicate when we focus on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday have suddenly become authentic experiences in real time. This is a tremendously harsh truth.
But another bit of truth is that, perhaps, we have come to know an urgent craving for Life and New Life. The depth of our collective heartache leaves us eager for Resurrection.
It’s not quite Easter yet. It may not yet feel like Easter when we arrive at April 12. But as with all the daffodils blooming right now that came from homely, nearly lifeless, oniony brown bulbs, there will be brightness again one day. There will be joy. This is what it means for us to find reassurance in Christ’s Resurrection. It will see us through to the other side of a difficult Holy Week that might not subside exactly according to schedule.
Thinking of schedules, in the next day or two, I’ll let you know about ways to participate in online options for Holy Week Readings, Easter observances, and such.
It’s not quite Easter yet. But here is a poem that formed itself in my head a few days ago…
Irrepressible
We are Easter People—
People who stand in a graveyard in the dark expecting the sun to rise
We are Easter People—
Full of Hope even in despair
Full of Love even in grief
Full of Beauty even in decay
Full of Promise even in disappointment
Full of Resurrection even in defeat
We are Easter People—
People who stand in a graveyard in the dark expecting Life
~Christine Sobania Johnson, 2020
Good Health and Good Hope, Pastor Chris
Blog
