Hello dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
A solemn blessing to each of you on this Holy Saturday as we wait for the stone to be rolled away from the tomb and to see, as we do each year, the wonder of the empty place where Jesus laid. To feel, as we do each year, the joy that comes when we realize that not even death could stop Love from returning to us.
I know this Holy Week has not looked like what most of us are used to: no stripping of the altar, no solemn processions, no chanting, no baptisms. Perhaps we are all mourning the loss of the familiar traditions during our most intensely observed Holy Days. And I've been wondering about all of the people, around the world, that can not go to church during Holy Week because they are at war, or working 15 hour shifts in medical facilities, or home-bound due to illness or circumstance. I think about my father-in-law that spent time in Korea during the Korean War, or my two grandfathers who were part of WWII - what did Easter mean to someone fighting in a war? I think about other times in history when America (and the world) has struggled to make ends meet; to make something look like "normal" when everything is changing.
No matter what, I think about how Jesus was not defeated by hate nor by death. How 2,000 years later we still tell this story with awe and wonder. How we still mark these days as something
more than any normal week in the early Spring. And I wonder, especially in these particular days of COVID19, just how Jesus might be inviting me to consider the empty tomb differently. How am I being invited to celebrate the defeat of death in isolation? I came across a lovely poem by Rev. Erika Takacs on Facebook last week, and it was emailed to me by a treasured friend on Palm Sunday. I would encourage you to take a few moments and ponder
"A Coming Alleluia".
Photo by Maggie Breen
