It is tempting to try to cancel Easter for the pandemic. Or selfishly gather with foolish abandon. But at the heart of Easter is God’s presence.
Celebrating the Resurrection now
Easter | Genesis 1-2:4, Matthew 28:1-10
There is great joy to arrive here, to see Easter during this strange and confusing time.
Three weeks ago, we were scrambling; trying to see what we could do. Could we even celebrate if we aren’t in the same room? When we feel this way? If we don’t have choirs and candles and robes? Or if we aren’t ringing bells and wearing hats or neckties? Can we even Easter without all of that?
Can we even Easter? Stuck at home?
Can we even Easter? In a pandemic?
We could write the book: How the Covid stole Easter.
But the thing is, the ending might just be the same. All the whos in Whoville will start singing. Because it came just the same.
Maybe not today. Not yet. Soon. We’ll feast together. We’ll sing together.
But the feast, the real feast, the thing that can’t be stolen, that’s here. Now.
Creation
I think about standing in our chapel with all of the candles. We enter in with song and solemn hearts. And then a friend stands up and reads a story about God. How God started making something out of the formlessness. And God rendered light and called that piece of incredible art good.
Then the globe with land and sky and seas. Molded, shaped, given form and distinct character: good. Then fill it with life! Turn the clay into soil, teaming with organic vitality; paint happy little trees and fill them with more vitality. Each part growing from the other. Such beautiful symmetry! Good.
God took that light and filled the cosmos with it. Stars everywhere, expanding outward. Globes of rock and gas, formed and broken apart like billiard balls, scattered, spinning. And ours went turning, too, bringing days, nights. The tilted axis bringing seasons. Good.
All of this creating! Beauty, hope, all rich with the vitality of newness and dependence. Now make creatures for the sea. Good! For the sky. Good! For the land. Good! All dependent, connected, embodied energy of life and creation. All of it is so good.
But let’s keep going.
Create a creature with sentience. Not just life. Something even closer to God. With reason and love and passion and wisdom and creativity. Let’s create a living thing that can do what God can do: create! To create life and shape life and make these creative energies all over the planet! And it was very good.
The Promise
The God who created the world, who created our creativity, knew we’d get bored, lost, angry, and sad. The spark God gave us? We hid that under layers of need and desire.
Because there’s always a desperate time. A deadline. Something that needs to get done. A line we didn’t really want to cross. It was just so easy to think Oh, but only this once.
We sinned over and over, and every single time we said to God I didn’t really mean it! This isn’t me!
We cut corners in our love for the world to make ends meet. To make things make sense. For political expediency or personal safety.
God, however, didn’t make exceptions. Not on God’s end. Not for God’s promise. To forgive. Be present. Love all this good.
The Red Sea
Some of these beautiful creations made slaves of other beautiful creations. Putting them to work in cotton fields and in deserts; harvesting and building; to amass incredible wealth for the greediest among us. Exploiting and stealing from creation: from God.
And God conspired with a Hebrew with an Egyptian name; raised by a generous Egyptian in the callous Pharoah’s own home. They conspired to bring an end to slavery and captivity: to free the people from bondage.
God sent plagues to motivate Pharaoh but greed endured.
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove put it well last week:
“Anyone who’s read Exodus knows that Pharaoh changes his tone every time he has to face reality. The trouble is that he never changes his heart.”
So God finally breaks the Pharoah’s grip and frees the Hebrew people. Keeping the promise.
God keeps keeping the promise. To us.
The Invitation
We failed to see the true beauty of connection with creation. The fruit of the trees. The cortisol-creating properties of even being near them—their calming effect, their inspiring height, and stability. And like them, we yearn and stretch and hope, reaching toward the sky, the light, that first attempt at making something good.
We failed to see how interconnected it all is. So we took what we wanted and fought over retaking it. But the whole ecosystem is dependent, not on our selfish egos, but on our generous relationship to one another.
“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”
We’re invited into a way of being that isn’t dependent on wealth, hoarding, or market forces. A way of connection that honors the humanity of our family, our neighbors, our strangers, perhaps even our enemies, and calling all of them “loved ones”. Loved by God, loved as part of us, loved as important, essential members of this beloved community.
We’re invited into seeing the promise, not through the selfish eyes of personal gain, but through the creative eyes of a splendor-spreading people of gratitude and wonder.
God promises presence and love so freedom is a natural outgrowth, an essential factor in restoring that connection with the world, each other, and God.
Showing Up
This is the promise fulfilled again at the empty tomb. The same promise to restore and reconnect us all. Not through greed and selfishness, but through joy and generosity. Through faith in a way of being connected with God and the cosmos—everything that is good.
The angel of God comes to the people who showed up. But it wasn’t bravery or circumstance. Nor was it earned or a product of vocation. Mary Magdalene didn’t have the right education or grow up in the right part of town.
She came to the tomb full of love and loss, full of the responsibility for caring for Jesus, even in death. That’s how she showed up. And the angel shows up for her and gives her the message to take to the rest.
And on her way there, Jesus shows up to her first.
We aren’t good because we show up or when we show up. And it isn’t only the people who show up that are good. We are good. God wants us to actually believe it.
We Are Still Here
We are still here, Friends. Within this grand cosmos, this globe of beauty and wonder, surrounded by the vitality of creation. And with this grand beauty, there is a promise to be here, to free us, to encourage and sustain us. To love us. No matter what.
That is why we can proclaim alleluia from our homes, in these small temples of safety and hope. And the butterflies we create out of construction paper and put in our windows can be the symbol of God’s beautiful, transformative grace.
We are still here. And God’s invitation to love is still here. Always. Breaking through our dense delusions like light searing through the darkness of space, heating cold vastness as intergalactic travelers.
And also like the microbes and worms in the soil, cultivating the most complex ecosystems. Like photosynthesizing leaves and the creepy crawlers who feed on them. And the apples and peaches which grow and we pick to eat.
A whole chorus of voices surround us, inspiring us to delight and serve: create and give back. Even now, even here. In these temples. With these hearts. All of us essential.