In the Middle of a Resurrection

Aden and I went for a walk yesterday in the 70-degree weather and passed a yard overcome with a creeping vine. Though it was probably a weed, it was full of starry purple flowers, scattered throughout the young green grass. "I'm sure they're not supposed to be there," said my daughter, "but they are really pretty."

So many things are not supposed to be where they are on this Easter day, as we hunt for signs of life and beauty like the kids used to hunt for candied eggs. We celebrated Easter service this morning with online church, our choir connected via Zoom meeting from many different homes, beautiful yet sad as we watched the screen fill with familiar faces that seem far away.

On this Easter day it's 20 degrees and snowing, a sharp turnaround from yesterday's balmy spring, another neck-spraining, whipsaw change. We watched snow fall past the office window as we listened to Rev Mark preach on  John's gospel, relaying how Mary Magdalene went to the tomb on a bleak Sunday morning. While the other disciples were locked in a room, tossing and turning, fearful of arrest, planning how to get back to their old lives, their old normal, Mary went out in search of Jesus. Rev Mark stressed that it was still dark when Mary went to the tomb, still hopeless when God was staging a miracle. The message: if we have faith, if we pursue God / love / hope while it is still dark, we will wake one day in the middle of a resurrection.

It's important for me to think about our resurrection - as a country - as a world - as a movement forward to a new normal. We can't go back to the way things were. Before the virus many people were lonely, many were sick and uninsured, were hungry and living paycheck to paycheck. We never saw our neighbors, spent less time with our families.  Let's not go back to the way things were; when we find ourselves, God willing, in the midst of the resurrection, let's make things better.

When Mary found Jesus in the garden, she didn't recognize him. He had to help her understand the miracle that had occurred, and then he warned her not to cling to him. In the midst of the joyful reunion, Jesus was already telling his followers that his presence wasn't permanent. He would not be the great human leader they followed into Jerusalem, he would not bring back their old dreams, the old normal. Instead, his followers would turn into leaders themselves, prophets of a new Christianity. They would spread out across the world with a deeper and more profound belief than before.

That must have been scary. In the midst of a resurrection with flowering joy and astonishment, there must still have been fear. We humans don't immediately love what's new, but we can adjust - look how the world adjusted to our at-home orders - many sociologists find our collective adaptations miraculous, and the worst-case scenarios have diminished accordingly.

 In the Christian churches we greet each other on Easter morning with the words "He is risen!"  I wonder, can we rise? Will our grandkids look back at this time and see that we rose to the occasion, that we persisted with hope while it was dark and created a new normal out of the ashes of the old?  When we find ourselves in the middle of a resurrection, let's become the leaders we wanted to follow, let's make it so.

Happy Easter, stay safe and well.
xoxo
Laura