Easter 2020
As we approach Easter, I have a strange question: Is it OK to Alleluia this year? Usually, we come together to Alleluia. What are we supposed to do now? With the corona virus raging all around, is it somehow counterintuitive to sing of joy? With so many crying because a loved one has died, is it sacrilegious to even think Alleluia? Does it make sense to cook ham and kielbasa and all the rest, when everyone you love is socially distant?
This Easter is unquestionably different. At the very least, the pandemic challenges our reasons for celebrating and forces us to dig deeper. As we think of cross and resurrection, death and life, perhaps we might think: what kind of life?
The story is told of a man who risked his life by swimming through a treacherous rip-tide to save a youngster swept out to sea. After the child recovered from the harrowing experience, he said to the man, “Thank you for saving my life.” The man looked into the boy’s eyes and said, “That’s okay, kid. Just make sure your life was worth saving.”
In the first letter of Peter we read, “In his own body he brought your sins to the cross, so that
all of us, dead to sin, could live in accord with God’s will. By his wounds you were healed”
(1 Peter 2:24).
In an article in St. Anthony Messenger entitled “Everyday Resurrections”, Kathy Coffey writes, “Easter comes to us as fitfully as it did to the first disciples. We carry to the tombs of our lives the same mixture of doubt, fear, certainty, anxiety, and joy that the disciples brought to Jesus’ tomb. He always seems to choose for witnesses the most unlikely prospects, ourselves included. Take Thomas, for instance. If Thomas—stubbornly insistent on tangible proof—can believe, maybe there’s hope for everyone. Doubt isn’t evil; it’s the entryway to hope….Only by coming dangerously close to this wounded Lord will we, too, know transformation of our wounds—and resurrection” (April 2020, p. 35).
Those who work in hospice come dangerously close to the dying and touch wounded humanity on a daily basis. A hospice nurse has the opportunity to see and appreciate life as precious, fragile and fleeting. One hospice nurse has compiled various regrets she has heard from those close to the end of life. Here are the top five:
- I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
- I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
- I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
- I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
- I wish that I had let myself be happier.One person, looking back at his life, admitted, “I have been one of those people who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a gargle, a raincoat, aspirin, and a parachute. If I had it to do over again, I would go places, do things and travel lighter. If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would play more. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I’d pick more daisies.”Most, I think, would agree that this is easier said than done. In more normal times, people have complained about yet another 60-hour work week, or admitted that, even with the best of intentions, they failed to call a friend they hadn’t seen in over a year and lost touch with.Perhaps we can look at this corona virus pandemic as a kind of world-wide hospice experience. We don’t know how it will play out, whom it will affect, or how it will all end. Yet, it offers an opportunity for reflection about what is really important, about our relationship with God and with those we love. It gives us time, and a chance to consider our use of it. And it enables us to bring our wounds to the One who is our healer, the one who gives a peace the world can neither give nor take away (see John 14:27).During a more normal Easter, at the beginning of the Holy Saturday liturgy, the beautiful Easter candle is lit, reminding us that Jesus Christ is the light of the world, a light that no darkness can extinguish. As part of the preparation of the candle, five wax “nails” are inserted into a cross that is part of the candle’s decoration. These nails represent the five wounds of Christ—on each hand, each foot, and the side—the wounds by which we have been healed. Just as the risen Christ still had his wounds, so the Easter candle bears a reminder of the cross.In the story of the young boy who was saved from drowning, the boy was told to make sure that his life was worth saving. In the story of Easter we learn that we have a Savior who believed with the last drop of his blood that our lives are worth saving. And that changes everything.And so, in the midst of suffering, anxiety and uncertainty, in the fits and starts of life, let us celebrate Easter because the world needs it now more than ever. In our prayer let us bring the wounds of the world to the Savior. And let us strive to live in a way worthy of such great love until that day when “he shall wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or mourning, crying out or pain, for the former world has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).Even now—especially now—it is OK to Alleluia. May you have a blessed Easter.