It's Easter--Seriously?

Well the forty days are over. It's like the Mueller report only 300,000 times more. We kept wondering what would happen during these forty days. Would he break under the load of the temptations in the desert? Would he call twelve not-so-perfect disciples and wonder later if maybe he could have done better? Would he wish he could have stayed on that sunny Mount of Transfiguration far away from all the noise and pain? And later at Lazarus' tomb as he wept idid he ask what we ask: Father: Lord, why? why? And as he staggered up that hill for the last time--knowing what was ahead--did he wonder if they were worth it? And when he whispered: tetelestai--it is finished in that last breath--did he fear death like the rest of us? The disciples thought sure this was the end of the story--wrong. For on Easter Sunday of all things that streamed from the empty tomb--one thing filled up all their cups and ran over. I was the best word of them all: hope.

We can drag out the trumpets and cover the altar in Easter lilies so much it is hard to find the poor preacher. We can even sing from the depths:" Jesus Christ is risen today..." But none of it can really touch the wonder of it all. How do we get our arms and our hearts around that word we don't use very often these days? Hope.

Years ago we had a chance to go to Oberammergau to the Passion Play. When we got there we were told it lasted about four and a half hours. My wife almost fainted: "Four and a half hours?" "Yes, someone nodded. "The delay really is in two parts you see half the play,  take a break for lunch and then come back and see the rest of the story." My wife said: "Oh!"

The theatre was different from the usual stage. The audience of four thousand or more sat under a roof. The play took place in front of us in the open air. The wind blew through the trees in the distance behind the set. Birds flew in and out during the play. The drama began as Jesus comes on stage riding on a donkey. And from all over crowds streamed onto the stage singing and waving palm branches. It was something.

But what I remember most of all was that last scene of the play. Calvary and black Saturday had come and gone. And quietly in the mostly-dark three women came forward knocking on the door of what looked like a tomb. They knocked and knocked. And suddenly the door cracked just a little. And it opened more and more--and light began to stream through that opening. And the door kept opening and the light kept coming until the door was wide open and the whole place was flooded with light. And through the open door and the blinding light came Jesus. And from stage left and right it looked like a hundred children began to stream forward laughing and singing calling his name and hugging his legs.

And so when I look out on those Sundays when I see him sitting there alone knowing his wife is a mile away is in a nursing home, not even knowing his name--I thought of the play in Germany  And when I wrote a note to my neighbor whose just lost his wife with cancer--married over  60 years I remembered again. And when I looked out and saw her sitting there--she had lost a husband and then not much later a young son--I remembered. And I thought of my cousin dear Ray who couldn't stand it any longer and took his life. Memories swirled.That member who suffered still birth after still birth. Memories swirled and surrounded by all that pain and heartache I thought of Easter.

Folks--the word is still hope for us all. Politicians jockeying for power. Churches trying to say a good news in a world gone bad. People in nursing homes and hospitals and in every house up and down your street and mine. Somehow, somehow we will make it. Not because of our fortitude and our strength but that strange little word called hope that I saw once upon a time through an open door and streaming light and laughing children.  

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com