It’s Tuesday – the Tuesday after Easter Monday. It’s the day of returning to the normal routine – whatever our new normal is! It is the day we return to sensible healthy eating after consuming all the chocolate and candy we could lay our hands on! It’s the day we put away our holiday anticipation and celebration and trudge into the work of this week. After all, Easter is over. Done. The bunny has been and gone. The candy wrappings bear witness to that. The lilies have put on their best showing and their fragile petals are browning at the edges. Easter is over … or is it? Certainly in our cultural experience it is over. The chocolate bunnies will all be on sale now. The decorations whisked away to get ready for … what is next? … Victoria Day? … gardening ?
For Christians, Easter is not just a day. In the church year it is a season that last for 50 days – until Pentecost, which this year will be on May 31st. This is the season we celebrate the Risen Christ and throughout the next 50 days, and beyond, we watch for signs of Christ’s appearing. Today, the Tuesday after Easter Monday, is really when the joy and celebration of Easter should settle in. If you read the scripture stories, it is in these early days after Christ’s crucifixion that the followers of Jesus began to adjust to the new normal of their day-to-day. The one they had hoped for, longed for, supported and celebrated, to their view was dead and gone. But something strange was happening for them, because, though they had seen him die now they saw him alive and in their midst. They had seen him crucified but here he was, encouraging them to eat, greeting them on their walks, joining them in their prayer time. They had to adjust all their thinking as to how they would live their lives, and practice their faith, going forward with this new reality of God’s presence in their lives.
In many ways the season of Easter could not come at a better time for us. When statistics of illness and death due to Covid19 overwhelm us and it feels more like Good Friday than Easter, when sorrow surrounds us and tears threaten to spill at any moment, when darkness seems more prevalent than light and as we seek shelter in our homes and consider the way forward, who better a companion than Christ? As we try to imagine how life will be for the next while, what better resource than the scriptures to guide us into new ways of living in community? As we read the stories of those early disciples of Jesus, who were flummoxed and afraid, hesitant and doubting, we are reminded that doubt and fear are just as much a part of the faith walk as is celebration and assurance.
The season of Easter reminds us that crucifixion and pandemics are balanced by life and love and songs of healing and hope. Resurrection is about change and challenge, new life and new ways of being. This hope for newness is what we need to hear and to remember in the midst of our pandemic fears and doubts. What the resurrection is really about, what the season of Easter is really about, is our connection with God throughout all things – life and death, illness and health, sorrow and joy, doubt and believing. Through all of this, God is with us. Happy Easter – again and again.
