Holy Week: Resurrection is Still Coming
*Picture by Christina of Sunset Cliffs in San Diego, CA
On Good Friday, I drove to sunset cliffs and parked my car to watch the stormy ocean. The water mirrored the tempestuous sky—dark blue across the horizon line, moody grey, and spits of white crested waves. Rain drizzled down my window and tapped orchestrally on my roof.
A cluster of bright yellow daisies climbed the rail in front of me, perfectly framed in my field of vision, but raindrops made the image blurry. It brought to mind my readings of the day Jesus died: the darkness that covered the land when he was crucified, making the bright promise of resurrection indecipherable and hard to believe.
The grief of Jesus’ death hung weighty in my car: how personal it is to lose a beloved friend (the hope of salvation) during a global pandemic, the person who embodied Divine Love in every cell of his being. I thought of the cross and was moved by Jesus’ willingness to trust and follow, to stay unified to God’s love no matter where it led him.
I sensed that same love pursuing me, “Beloved, look at what great lengths I have gone to love you in human form.”
On Holy Saturday, I took my Sabbath and rested from my week’s work. But this year Holy Saturday felt the same as most days during quarantine: quiet and somber, with latent hope for what new life is still coming. Instead of wrestling with the question, “What should I be doing between death and resurrection?” I let the day be a container for what I am already experiencing:
The burden of sickness and fear alongside the expectation of what good could rise up out of this global crisis. Grief from my own losses caused by the pandemic, and gratitude for the calm.
I let myself experience all the opposites and overlapping ambiguities, allowing me to rest in both God’s absence and God’s promise.
On Easter Sunday, I woke up to my alarm, French-pressed my coffee, and sat on my couch to join my church on a virtual live-stream. I watched my two priests lead the service from their own living rooms. Without the congregation, I could hear the conviction in their own words more clearly. At the end one walked the other through a renewal of her baptismal vows. I heard the loving invitation in each question and the unwavering commitment in each answer:
“Do you believe?”
“I believe.”
“Will you seek?”
“I will seek.”
“Will you strive for justice and peace?”
“I will, with God’s help.”
I was moved by my priests’ devotion, to deliver the good news of resurrection even and especially during a pandemic. I sensed God in them reaching out to love me, with the same pursuit as God in Jesus going to great lengths to reach out with love from the cross.
I sensed God in me responding, as the loving container, holding me together when so many things are being removed during this quarantine. And as the indwelling promise that is always and continually regenerating life.
As the service came to an end, I sat in the glow of resurrection, alone in my studio. Instead of joining family and friends for an Easter brunch or an egg hunt in the churchyard, I closed my eyes and invited the risen Christ to meet with me.
In my mind’s eye I saw God filling our homes and empty churches with Divine Presence, like the wafting of potent incense in the air at an Easter service.
I felt God covering our globe with warm healing balm, rubbing it into areas of sickness and then encasing the world between his balm-soaked palms.
I saw Jesus continuing his earthly ministry: sitting at bedsides where he held the hands of the dying, his face drawn close to theirs, his gaze fixed and attentive.
I heard Jesus comforting the brokenhearted, his arm encircling grief slumped shoulders and head tilted listening.
The bright promise of Easter came into focus: Jesus is risen, but the fullness of resurrection is still coming.
Thanks be to God.