Quarantine Resurrection

 

Quarantine Resurrection

What does resurrection look like when we feel like we’ve been in a tomb for over a year?

What is new about life when four walls have shrunk down around us until we can’t breathe?

Spring flowers dance in the gentle breeze. They bob and nod together with no fear of death.

Various snowbirds are home gobbling worms and building nests. Some take flight and go to the highest branch or to the feeder prepared for them. No limits on movement. They sing full throttle.

Will the Easter Bunny wear a mask as the baskets are delivered to the children this year?

Churches questioning. Congregants taking sides. Who will be open? Who will remain closed? Who decides? Who knows for certain what is safe and what is just a longing?

Empty Easter dinner tables, or full?

Who’s vaccinated and who isn’t?

It’s our second Quarantine Resurrection.

Last year was a novelty. We thought restrictions would be lifted by Easter. We made the best of it when they weren’t.

But there is nothing novel about this second quarantine resurrection.

All the days from last Easter to this Easter have taken their toll. Too much death. Too many tombs. No stones to be rolled away, no empty tombs to discover with joy. Just death.

And yet…there have been other Easters draped in black before this year or last. History tells us of pandemics and war times and hard times when a shroud hung heavy.

Loss and pain and disruption have been visited on previous generations. We grieve for them because we can say, “We now understand some of what you have been through.”

And that is what prods us to remember this: The cross and the tomb couldn't hold Jesus.

Every year on this Great Anniversary death doesn’t get the last word.

Yes, too many people were healed into eternal life this past year. Too many people are being healed into eternal life right now as we watch infections and hospitalizations rise again.

But the tomb of Jesus Christ will still be empty this Easter morn.

The promise of eternal life is still our promise.

The hope for redemption from all the messes we have made as human beings, is more than a hope. It’s reality.

Jesus Christ lived and died and lives again. This is our glorious fate.

Yes, we will gather for worship again – all of us, not just a few. We will sing the hymns, stand for the Gospel reading, and get chills when we hear the words, “Do not be afraid…he is not here, he has been raised, as he said.”

Easter dinner tables will be heavy-laden with feasts for family and friends. And we will be able to see their faces, not just their eyes.

Spring flowers will delight us. The snowbirds will teach us to fly again.

Jesus will lead us from the dark tombs we have grieved in, and into the glorious light of his healing grace.

That’s what Jesus does year after year, and generation after generation.

It’s not novel. It’s something like a miracle.

Jesus Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

Amen.