Easter?

Today is Easter Sunday. Normally, there is such a sense of relief and joy associated with this day. We’ve made it through another Lent with all it’s deprivations, somber tones, and sadness. We are able to look back on the last weeks with gratitude as a time of discipline, deep cleaning of our souls, and determination to bring new life to our lives.

But that is just it, we can look back, it’s over, and we can look forward to a newness, to a second chance at being our best. With the first sound of the trumpet, the smell of the lilies, and the shouts of Alleluia, we can rejoice reminded that Jesus is risen and once again in his right place with the Father. That the incomprehensible love of God through the suffering of Jesus has provided for us the hope and assurance of our right place.

This Easter is different. I don’t feel that usual sense of relief, sense of joy, sense of newness. There is a subtle yet unmistakable feeling of disquiet.

Nothing feels like it has changed. We are still stuck in this time of deprivations, somber tones, and sadness.

I feel like I’m faking it as I fill the plastic eggs with jellybeans for the socially distanced Easter egg hunt with the grandkids today. I feel like I was going through the motions as I watched services for the Triduum on my iPad. But then I realize that is how the virus has infected me. I might not be physically sick, but spiritually I have let it zap me, and I need to fight that. The world right now is telling me a somber story, but my faith is telling me a very different story. And it’s that story I need to listen to. Especially today.

This Easter is very different by worldly standards, but nothing can take away the significance and the beauty of this joyful day. The promise the empty tomb brings can’t be wiped out by anything. That is Easter joy!

May you and those you love feel God’s presence in a new and deeper way this Easter.

Joan