(Mary Magdalene, Peter and another disciple have their worst and best day -- first, thinking that now even the dead body of Jesus has been stolen away from them; and then, as they make their way through their tears and fears, beginning to hear and see the promise and gift of resurrection and new life.)
Best Easter
ever? What would be your story?
Four years ago
while I was away from the church on medical leave for almost 5 months, I was
also away from home for 14 weeks of that time – from mid-January to mid-April, getting
help with some personal issues and disorders.
It was a hard time for Japhia and I, made only harder by how long and
severe and snow-bound that whole time was.
I came home
finally from the program I was in, on the Tuesday of Holy Week. Two days later, on Maundy Thursday, Japhia
and I headed out of town to spend Easter weekend at VanDuzer’s lakeside cottage,
which they graciously made available and opened up for us. When we got there, even though it was already
mid-April there was still snow on the ground, the lake was still frozen over,
and we wondered if winter would ever end.
Friday morning we found a little church in a nearby town with a Good
Friday service. The rest of that day and
all of Holy Saturday we spent in the cottage, in front of the fireplace, seeking
warmth and some sign of resurrection and hope.
Easter Sunday
morning, as planned, we rose early – just a little after sunrise. We bundled into parkas and boots and hats and
gloves, and with a bottle of wine and a small loaf of bread, walked down to the
lakeshore to share Easter morning communion.
Along the way it seemed something had changed. And, when we got to the lakeshore, we knew
what it was.
Overnight, a warm
wind had come in from the east, and when we got to the lake we saw that the ice
had melted. It was dissolved into chunks
of slush. The slush was being blown off
to the west end of the lake, into a little bay.
And fresh water was showing through all over. Spring had come. Overnight.
And in the creeping early dawn light, we shared bread and wine, and gave
thanks.
Best Easter ever.
C.S. Lewis in his
Chronicles of Narnia builds an entire worldview around the passing of winter –
with winter’s cold, its hardness of heart, and its frozen incapacity for love
and real life as an image of the season and the reign of evil in the world, and
the coming of spring – with its thawing of the heart, its risky bursts of new
life emerging the snow, and its promise of warmth and new growth, as an image
of the appearing of the Christ, the coming of the kingdom, and the beginning of
the age of real humanity for all creation.
“I believe that God [he says, in the
resurrection of Jesus] really has dived down to the bottom of creation, and has
come up bringing the whole redeemed nature on his shoulders. The miracles that have already happened are,
of course … the first fruits of that cosmic summer which is presently coming
on. Christ has risen, and so we shall
rise… To be sure, it feels wintry enough still: but often in the very early
spring it feels like that. Two thousand
years are only a day or two by this scale.
We really ought to say, ‘The resurrection happened two thousand years
ago’ in the same spirit in which we say, ‘I saw a crocus yesterday.’”
The resurrection of Jesus is a single, one-time event –
but also a wonderful and gracious moment in a larger, eternal movement and
momentum of God in all the world. It is
a sign and a sealing of a larger, eternal promise. It’s like a stone dropped one time into a
pond, breaking the ice and sending out ripples that continue until the end of
time. It is one Act in the on-going
dynamic of God at work in the life of the world, undoing the winters of our
dis-eases and the world’s dis-orders, with spring after spring of new and true
life for all.
I shared this recently, however, with a friend who is a member of a spiritual
growth group I get together with every few months. His name is John and he lives on and still
farms the old family farm near Woodstock that he inherited from his
father. And his response to my joy at
the thought of spring emerging from winter from the landscape of life, was that
he really hates spring. Because for him, it’s the beginning of nothing but
work.
Through
the winter he can rest. He has time to
read. To reflect, and to write. He has time to grow and explore within
himself. Do what he wants to do.
In
the spring, though, through the summer and into the fall, he has to work long
and hard at things not always of his choosing, or at times of his choosing. He is at the beck and call of uncontrollable weather,
animals and their different needs, machinery and its cantankerous
unreliability.
And
we have to admit that Easter and new life are like that. Easter doesn’t come from inside us. The new life we most need, and in which God
calls us to thrive and find real joy, usually isn’t defined by our desires and
wants, or our own plans and interests.
It
comes from beyond us. It rises up
unbidden to surprise us. It bursts in
through doors we thought we had closed, to touch and stir something within us
that maybe we didn’t even know was part of us, or that we would ever see as
part of our life. It comes as a personal
call to believe in something new and hopeful through tears that we thought
would never end.
And
it takes work and a willingness to commit time and talent and treasure to the
needs of others around us – to let the ice of our isolation be broken, and let
ourselves be caught up and carried along on the ripples of the kingdom in our
time.
Like
the March For Our Life in Washington, D.C. a week ago that was organized by students
from Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Sandy Hook Elementary
School in Newtown Connecticut, and Columbine High School in Columbine,
Colorado, and that attracted a quarter million people.
Like
the Me Too Movement and the Times Up campaign.
Like Idle No More and Black Lives Matter.
Like
Gord Downie at the end of his life and on his farewell tour feeling led to give
voice to the story of Canada’s First Nations’ people, and then using his gifts
and the time left to him to raise up the story of the tragic, secret path of
Chanie Wenjack.
Like
Robyn Hunt and Elizabeth Wood interrupting their lives to make multiple trips
to South America with Medical Ministries International, and Grant Durfey
starting off his career as a paramedic with a mission trip to Haiti in July.
Like
every new program down the street, every new initiative in our own community,
every new bit of attention we feel inspired to give to existing programs all
around us to feed the hungry, to raise up the poor, to nurture the faith of the
young, to comfort the lonely and fearful.
Like
every thawing of a single human heart – yours and mine. Every single new movement of love between us,
or from us to a neighbour. Every
shifting – either big or little, of our priorities and commitments in life that
brings us more in tune with the on-going, eternal momentum of God’s kingdom
breaking through the crust of Earth’s winter.
Easter
comes to life on Earth one story, one life, and one new direction at a time. And it’s this that’s been the heart-beat
behind the good that has been done at this church over and over again. It’s the holy power at the heart of what believe,
and what we commit ourselves to in our own lives.
So
… best Easter – the best sign of God’s eternal Easter, for you?
Where
is the ice melting in your life, or in the life of the world around you?
Where
do you feel the icy grip of winter being pushed back, and a new spring calling
you to pick up and do some kingdom work?
What
ripple of ongoing resurrection are you riding – is lifting you up and carrying
along, in your life right now?
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