Maundy Thursday service went well, and then it was Good Friday. Talk about backwards. I spent the day practicing the Exsultet and writing my Easter Vigil sermon. I was in Easter before I had reached Good Friday, but we were recording the Vigil right after the livestream of Good Friday. Liturgical whiplash! All day it felt wrong to be singing Alleluia, but I decided that I'd already experienced Good Friday this Lent with the pandemic and the deaths. It was okay.
Holy Saturday, I got to walk the labyrinth. And rest. And Easter morning, I woke up sad. I had to remind myself that it was Easter, but even the reminder didn't bring the usual smile of joy. Tears lurked behind my eyes, threatening to slip down my cheeks. As I glanced through my email, I saw that a message had come in from Christ and St. Luke's, the church that sponsored me for ordination. It was the link to their Easter service. (View here.) I decided to "attend" the video while I ate my breakfast.
Like a child returning to the comfort of her mother, I returned the church that had been the spiritual home of my young adulthood. And I was nurtured yesterday as surely as I had been nurtured 25 years ago. The sound of brass playing Easter hymns lifted my spirits, and video footage of that beautiful church reminded me of other happy Easters, long before I knew the joy of Easter as a priest. And then came Win Lewis' sermon. Win is the first person I ever wrote a fan letter to, and it was because of his sermons. He was the Associate Rector when I attended in the 90s, and his sermons always spoke to me. He preached about Easter as the triumph of love, telling stories of how love overcomes grief, bitterness, trauma, hatred, and death, preventing those things from having the final word. He quoted Corrie Ten Boom - "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still."
He also quoted his New Testament professor who said, "Resurrection is not resuscitation." It's not resuscitation of the old; resurrection is the transformation into something new.
In my own Easter Vigil sermon, I had preached that saying "Alleluia" in this time doesn't mean we have to pretend to feel happy when we're not. Yesterday morning, I heard my own words. It didn't matter that I didn't feel joyous on Easter morning. It was okay to be sad. It was okay to be where I was. Resurrection is not up to me. It's up to God. If I do not insist on being resuscitated into myself before the pandemic, God will transform me into something new. Love triumphs over everything. Death, grief, pandemics, isolation, despair do not have the final word. Love has the final word.
In that moment as I sat curled up on my couch, I heard God speaking to me through Win Lewis, and I knew it was okay to be where I was, to feel what I was feeling. Being sad on Easter doesn't mean that Christ isn't risen. Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia. A bit later, walking through the churchyard before the Bruton service, I took the picture above. Standing amid graves and viewing the Easter lilies, I heard the words of our burial office, "In the midst of life, we are in the midst of death. Yet even at the grave we make our song, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia."
On Good Friday, my rector, Chris Epperson preached that two things can be true at the same time. I can say, "Alleluia" while feeling sad. I may be sad for awhile, but that doesn't mean that Easter didn't come. Easter comes whenever love triumphs. Even my grief is a triumph of love, for if I had not loved, I would not grieve.
Happy Easter, everyone.
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