Muddy Easter Morning
Muddy Easter Morning
by Amy Bratton
Each Good Friday and Easter, I have this strange habit of checking to see if the weather matches the theological mood of the day. Will Good Friday be gloomy and rainy? Will Easter be bright and sunny, preferably after a few gloomy days? I don’t know where I picked up the idea that my local weather should reflect the liturgical story we’re celebrating on those days, but somehow it makes me feel better when these things sync up.
When I lived in Vancouver the weather was often the opposite: a beautiful sunny day on Good Friday. Friends who held an outdoor Easter sunrise service confirmed that it rained almost every Easter Sunday in Vancouver. The dissonance between the liturgical and the physical world around me makes me think of the tension between the already and not yet that we experience: the hope and transformation we embody are a sign of the already truth that Jesus died and was raised from the dead over 2000 years ago. At the same time, I am reminded of the not yet every time brokenness, pain and darkness manifest physically and spiritually around me.
It’s springtime in Saskatoon, which is an unpredictable time at best, full of melting snow and the mud left in its wake. Everything is muddy in the springtime: roads and cars are caked in mud, my boys are caked in mud from playing in the newly revealed sand at the playground. Even so, in the midst of the mess that winter left behind, the melt feels hopeful. As if it is a sign that Saskatchewan isn’t actually Narnia under the Witch’s curse of “always winter and never Christmas.” Spring is filled with the hope of the coming summer, but it sure is a dingy process to get there.
The last several years have been complex years for my family feeling like that Saskatchewan spring mix of mud and hope. While my husband and I have been finally finding our feet in our multivocational careers and are enjoying the fulfillment in our vocational fit, it’s also the season of parenting two intense young boys. We’ve been through mental health struggles, the diagnosis and resolution of a serious health condition, and grief over a sudden death in the family. The emotions that come with celebrating the good when there is still so much struggle remaining are mixed ones. The tension of the already and not yet is all around us.
Today as we celebrate Easter, I can’t help but reflect back on the last year, a year that has felt like a never-ending Lenten fast. When the lockdowns started in March 2020, I think many of us thought things would take a turn for the better by Easter 2020. Yet, here we are again, approaching Easter a year later with a bit more knowledge about this novel virus, a bit more experience with online tools to stay connected, a bit more appreciation for the loved ones we haven’t been able to hug in quite some time...and a lot of grief for the things that were cancelled or indefinitely postponed or changed beyond recognition in an attempt to continue in a safe way. The grief feels palpable.
How do we celebrate Easter in the tension between the already and not yet? How do we long for physical meetings and connections, while respecting that the health risk is still very real? How do we sing and speak, “He is Risen,” when it feels like the darkness that settled in on Good Friday hasn’t actually lifted?
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The Gospel accounts of Christ's Post-resurrection appearances fascinate me. Today’s lectionary reading is one of my favourites: the story of Mary at the tomb in the Gospel of John. It’s a story that raises more questions than answers for me. Mary finds the empty tomb and goes to tell the disciples. They race to the tomb and are equally perplexed by its emptiness. Then as the men try to sort out why Jesus’ body was missing Mary stays behind in her grief. Even as Jesus becomes physically present to Mary she doesn’t recognize him. Why didn’t she know him? What was the experience of meeting the resurrected Jesus like? So many times despite his physical presence he is still obscured from close friends - what is going on?
Then Jesus speaks her name, and Mary knows it is him. And so begins a journey to know what it means that Jesus has been raised from the dead.
Imagine what it would have been like for Mary to be a witness to that world-transforming moment, yet also be so deep in a grief mixed with joy that nothing really makes sense. I imagine there would have been so many questions in Mary’s mind when she ran to tell the disciples that she had seen Jesus, with even more questions to sort out in the coming days.
So, where do you find yourself this Easter morning?
Is the beauty and longing of Lent lingering in your heart?
Are you filled with the sunny-day-celebration and joy of Easter morning?
Are you somewhere muddy in between?
Is there hope mixed in with the mess right now in your life?
All of these places are real and valuable places to rest in today.
As we find ourselves and the people around us in these complex places, can we continue to walk with each other, even if others are on the other side of the already and not yet tension?
Today on Resurrection Sunday, may you embrace whatever weather you find yourselves in. Whether muddy, wet, or sunny, may the complexities of life remind you of the journey we are on with each other and with the Resurrected Christ.
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