Easter in Place

It’s been incredibly hard for me to keep in mind that this weekend is Easter. The fact that we won’t be going to a Good Friday service, that we couldn’t have people over to do a Seder supper as we’ve done a few times in the past, that we wouldn’t be seeing family and friends for a meal and Easter festivities all conspire to make this Easter feel strangely non-existent. 

With all the disruption caused by the coronavirus it’s temptingly easy to let this weekend slide past in the blur of our shelter-in-place reality. 

My friends, we must not let that happen. For many of us this Easter may be closer in experience to the first Easter than any other.

The Crucifixion

For Jesus’ followers, good Friday wasn’t a normal day. It was a moment of radical and terrible disruption. The plans they’d had in place and the expectations that they’d nurtured – that Jesus was the anointed one come to restore Israel to her rightful place as the foremost of nations with Jesus as the King and them conveniently as his inner circle – were utterly shattered. 

Late Thursday night Jesus was arrested as an insurrectionist and heretic, hauled away for a clandestine trial as his disciples fled in fear.

Friday dawned with fear and hiding, Peter’s verbal denial of his savior simply being an audible version of the actions of all of the 12. 

Fear turned to horror as the crowds called for Jesus’ crucifixion and death, with (apparently) only a few of the disciples daring to be present for the crucifixion itself. 

The next couple days were ones of more hiding. The first Easter looked more like sheltering in place, with the disciples furtively navigating their city’s streets and hiding indoors as much as possible in hopes of escaping notice and potential capture, just as many of us today are sheltering in place and going out only when essential. 

The Resurrection

Unlike we’re accustomed to, Resurrection Sunday didn’t start with a joyful gathering of a body of impassioned believers. It started with a few women surreptitiously heading to the tomb to complete the work of embalming their dead friend – a work they’d unpleasantly had to postpone due to Saturday being the Sabbath. The first news of the resurrection wasn’t received with joyful worship; it was received with skepticism and questioning. 

Similarly, for many of us our Easter mornings won’t start out with the joyful gathering of family and believers face-to-face to celebrate and share a meal. And if it does it will probably be done surreptitiously, lest the social media guardians be set loose with a barrage of criticism. 

Easter in Place

More than any other year, this year it would be easy to simply let this Easter weekend pass by unnoticed and simply postpone the celebrations until we can “do it right.” 

Don’t let that happen. Make this Easter matter. Keep Easter in place. The powerful truths of Christ’s atoning death and the unstoppable life of his resurrection are all the more relevant now. The Gospel story has massive implications for a world of pandemics, economic collapse, and all the associated fears. 

This weekend take advantage of the fact that our current circumstances lend themselves to feeling the emotions that parallel those first disciples’. When you feel frustrated or slightly crazy from being at home, let it remind you of the disciples, huddled and hiding that Saturday. When you’re torn by ambivalence about what news source to believe or whether our governments’ choices are the right ones, let it remind you of the ambivalence and questioning that the disciples certainly felt as they discussed among themselves what went wrong and how their savior was betrayed. When you’re tugged at by the nagging fear that your children or friends might catch COVID-19 because you haven’t cleaned well enough, remember the fear of those first followers of Jesus at every sound outside their locked doors as they waited for the impending break-in of Roman soldiers. 

Then, let that pent up fear and anger and ambivalence and anxiety be utterly scattered by the wonder of the fact that Jesus came back. The worst of death couldn’t hold him, therefore the worst of this life can’t hold you. As Paul wrote in Romans 6, if we have been crucified with him we will surely live with him. 

Celebrate, even in a small way, the in-breaking hope of the resurrection on Sunday. Even if it looks like simply making a good meal, dressing up for no reason, and singing worship songs with your house-mates in your living room. 

Easter in place.