Resurrection Sunday

Resurrection Sunday

I may be a little late in posting this, but He is risen, He is risen, indeed!

I have received many texts on my phone this day expressing this sentiment, one we use on this day as a greeting to one another. It is so good to at least have these text messages giving us a bit of connection to those that hold this day in the utmost esteem.

I think this social distancing that we are practicing is a mixed blessing. Most of our usual practices have been stripped away, especially those that involve crowds of any size.

Gone is the music of the church – choirs and orchestras – that help to stir up awe, wonder and joy as we celebrate resurrection. Perhaps you are missing this, I know I am to a certain extent. I’ve always enjoyed those rousing traditional hymns that allow us to vocally lift up loud voices to express our joy. Newer musical compositions have the same uplifting effect and lend so much joy to this day.

While I miss the usual experiences of the season, I do want to point out the blessing of a quieter, more reflective celebration. Without all the usual prompts and queues leading us to worship, we are left with the choice of intentionally and personally rejoicing. Please choose to enter into a non-traditional, more personal joy for this day.

In consideration of what I am asking you to do, please consider, what might have been the celebration of this day been like, one year after Jesus’ resurrection? I am suspecting it was small, personal, intimate and reflective. In the minds of those early followers steeped in the culture and practice surrounding Passover, I am sure there was a strong and new connection to that celebration. They had witnessed the complete full circle of God’s redemption that had started upon the exodus out of Egypt and ended a year earlier in Jesus’ death.

When I place myself there, trying to observe and reflect as it might have been, resurrection, so improbable with nothing corresponding in the Passover celebration, becomes a lightening rod memory. For those remembering with fresh, one-year old memories, resurrection still must have seemed so fresh, so unexpected, so…… I simply don’t have a word or phrase to capture what that fresh memory would stir up.

All these 2000+ years later, we’ve just lumped it all together and usually rush into the celebration of Jesus’ coming back to life. We almost take it for granted. This year is different, isn’t it?

Our loss of communal celebrations during this peculiar time allows us to approach Easter in a new way. Maybe we can have a fresh appreciation for those early believers.

On Friday, I asked you to stand at the cross. Yesterday I asked you to sit with those who felt such dark grief, not knowing what was to come.

Today, may we not try to capture our own joy in the midst of our loss of community, but to sit with the joy of those on that first year anniversary of resurrection. May we see this day through their eyes. Let yourself be encompassed by their joy, their witness of the impossible and improbable breakthrough Jesus’ resurrection truly is.

We are alive in a way not possible without resurrection.

He is risen, and so are we.