Easter
17/04/22 01:02
Easter has come. The time of celebration is at hand. Alleluia! Let the hymns ring from the churches! Let the people rejoice!
But remember, Easter dawns slowly for so many. Resurrection is a difficult concept to understand - a holy mystery that requires struggle to accept. Look at the stories we tell on this day and the weeks to come. Mary met the resurrected Christ and thought at first that he was the gardener. Disciples talked with the resurrected Christ for the day’s walk to Emmaus, but only when they ate together did they recognize him. Thomas refused to believe the stories of his friends until he touched the resurrected Christ. Those closest to Jesus struggled to understand the resurrection.
We should not be surprised that we struggle to understand.
Landslides and floods have killed at least 167 people in the Philippines. Homes are gone, washed out to sea. Families are devastated, their loved ones buried under the mud of hillsides that have fallen. Shelters are full of grieving and displaced people, soaked in the muddy water. It doesn’t feel like Easter to so many of them.
More than 150 Palestinians have been injured in clashes with Israeli police at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, according to medics helping to treat the injured. Protestors have gathered at the flashpoint site, also known as Temple Mount, at the heart of competing historical claims after more than 20 Palestinians have been killed by stepped up Israeli sweeps in the West Bank in what is the deadliest period of attacks in Israel for more than 15 years. The country is on edge. It doesn’t feel like Easter.
The people of Ukraine brace for more deadly attacks even as they struggle to rebuild after weeks of war with Russia. As the human cost of the war begins to be revealed in Russia with the release of pictures of the crew of the sunken warship are shown for the first time, Russian leaders speak boldly of their new attack on Mariupol. Ukraine continues to beat the odds in the remarkably uneven conflict. The sanctions of western countries are hitting hard at Russia, but have yet to bring talks of peace to the region. It doesn’t feel like Easter as the people hunker down for yet another attack.
Our friends at South Park United Church of Christ will be singing their Easter hymns with tears in their eyes this morning. Their beloved pastor Bruce, suddenly died and was taken from them this Lent. After decades of shared ministry and so many stories that have intertwined, it doesn’t feel right. They will come together. They will celebrate resurrection, but it just won’t be the same. It won’t be at all like Easter to them.
Torrential rains have killed more than 400 people in South Africa, where about 40,000 people are affected by unprecedented flooding. There are fears of more deaths as search and rescue operations continue. Scores of people are still unaccounted for. With more rain on its way, emergency teams face further peril as they search for survivors. It doesn’t feel like Easter to people who lack clean drinking water a week after the first floods swept through the region.
Despite the lifting of mask mandates and the easing of travel restrictions, new infections of Covid and new deaths remind us that the pandemic is anything but over. Health officials warn that this is not the time to ease efforts at preventing illness. New variants will certainly arise and spread with alarming speed. New victims will be found. After more than two years of living with the global pandemic, health officials warn that not only is this pandemic not over, but new pandemics are on their way. It doesn’t feel like Easter for those suffering illness and those grieving the deaths of loved ones.
Easter dawns slowly. We should not be surprised that we struggle to understand.
In our time with children during worship this morning, we will tell the children and remind the congregation about the many different symbols we use when we talk of the mystery of resurrection. Ideas of life beyond death and of love that never dies are hard to understand and hard to explain, so we do what people have long done. We use images and poems and metaphors and symbolic language. We speak of butterflies emerging from chrysalis. Sometimes we teach our children big words like eclosion. A chrysalis appears to be something that is dead and dried, but it is far from so. In the midst of that dried shell hormones are flowing, a central nervous system is triggering movement, emergence is beginning. Things are not always the way they seem and we teach this to our children that they might remember such lessons when they face hard times, when grief enters their lives, when they come to a place where they think that all is lost.
In the church, we never expect the true message of Easter to come through in a single worship service. We’ll bring the best of our music and the most dramatic of our skills, but we know that Easter is more than a moment - more than a single worship service. In our calendar, Easter is a season that is even longer than Lent. We spend 40 days struggling with the concept of death. It takes 50 to begin to understand the mystery of life beyond death.
So we don’t pretend to come to worship with all of the answers. We don’t pretend that we gather in a world without suffering. We don’t forget the victims, so numerous, of the wars, of the weather, of the frailties of human existence. We gather in the midst of this imperfect world with its victims, far too numerous, and grief far too deep, and challenges that seem to be unsurmountable. It is not hard to look at this world and see that it is a place in need of resurrection. And even if Easter dawns slowly, even if we struggle to understand, Easter has indeed come.
Christ is risen! Alleluia!
But remember, Easter dawns slowly for so many. Resurrection is a difficult concept to understand - a holy mystery that requires struggle to accept. Look at the stories we tell on this day and the weeks to come. Mary met the resurrected Christ and thought at first that he was the gardener. Disciples talked with the resurrected Christ for the day’s walk to Emmaus, but only when they ate together did they recognize him. Thomas refused to believe the stories of his friends until he touched the resurrected Christ. Those closest to Jesus struggled to understand the resurrection.
We should not be surprised that we struggle to understand.
Landslides and floods have killed at least 167 people in the Philippines. Homes are gone, washed out to sea. Families are devastated, their loved ones buried under the mud of hillsides that have fallen. Shelters are full of grieving and displaced people, soaked in the muddy water. It doesn’t feel like Easter to so many of them.
More than 150 Palestinians have been injured in clashes with Israeli police at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, according to medics helping to treat the injured. Protestors have gathered at the flashpoint site, also known as Temple Mount, at the heart of competing historical claims after more than 20 Palestinians have been killed by stepped up Israeli sweeps in the West Bank in what is the deadliest period of attacks in Israel for more than 15 years. The country is on edge. It doesn’t feel like Easter.
The people of Ukraine brace for more deadly attacks even as they struggle to rebuild after weeks of war with Russia. As the human cost of the war begins to be revealed in Russia with the release of pictures of the crew of the sunken warship are shown for the first time, Russian leaders speak boldly of their new attack on Mariupol. Ukraine continues to beat the odds in the remarkably uneven conflict. The sanctions of western countries are hitting hard at Russia, but have yet to bring talks of peace to the region. It doesn’t feel like Easter as the people hunker down for yet another attack.
Our friends at South Park United Church of Christ will be singing their Easter hymns with tears in their eyes this morning. Their beloved pastor Bruce, suddenly died and was taken from them this Lent. After decades of shared ministry and so many stories that have intertwined, it doesn’t feel right. They will come together. They will celebrate resurrection, but it just won’t be the same. It won’t be at all like Easter to them.
Torrential rains have killed more than 400 people in South Africa, where about 40,000 people are affected by unprecedented flooding. There are fears of more deaths as search and rescue operations continue. Scores of people are still unaccounted for. With more rain on its way, emergency teams face further peril as they search for survivors. It doesn’t feel like Easter to people who lack clean drinking water a week after the first floods swept through the region.
Despite the lifting of mask mandates and the easing of travel restrictions, new infections of Covid and new deaths remind us that the pandemic is anything but over. Health officials warn that this is not the time to ease efforts at preventing illness. New variants will certainly arise and spread with alarming speed. New victims will be found. After more than two years of living with the global pandemic, health officials warn that not only is this pandemic not over, but new pandemics are on their way. It doesn’t feel like Easter for those suffering illness and those grieving the deaths of loved ones.
Easter dawns slowly. We should not be surprised that we struggle to understand.
In our time with children during worship this morning, we will tell the children and remind the congregation about the many different symbols we use when we talk of the mystery of resurrection. Ideas of life beyond death and of love that never dies are hard to understand and hard to explain, so we do what people have long done. We use images and poems and metaphors and symbolic language. We speak of butterflies emerging from chrysalis. Sometimes we teach our children big words like eclosion. A chrysalis appears to be something that is dead and dried, but it is far from so. In the midst of that dried shell hormones are flowing, a central nervous system is triggering movement, emergence is beginning. Things are not always the way they seem and we teach this to our children that they might remember such lessons when they face hard times, when grief enters their lives, when they come to a place where they think that all is lost.
In the church, we never expect the true message of Easter to come through in a single worship service. We’ll bring the best of our music and the most dramatic of our skills, but we know that Easter is more than a moment - more than a single worship service. In our calendar, Easter is a season that is even longer than Lent. We spend 40 days struggling with the concept of death. It takes 50 to begin to understand the mystery of life beyond death.
So we don’t pretend to come to worship with all of the answers. We don’t pretend that we gather in a world without suffering. We don’t forget the victims, so numerous, of the wars, of the weather, of the frailties of human existence. We gather in the midst of this imperfect world with its victims, far too numerous, and grief far too deep, and challenges that seem to be unsurmountable. It is not hard to look at this world and see that it is a place in need of resurrection. And even if Easter dawns slowly, even if we struggle to understand, Easter has indeed come.
Christ is risen! Alleluia!
