For the first time in remembered history, I didn't have any of those delectable fruity little springtime candies. Not one. And usually I can eat a bagful, beginning with the pink and proceeding through the orange, purple, red and finally -- most reluctantly -- the yellow and green ones. This year, Easter doesn't feel like a new dress or junk food. It doesn't even feel like springtime. Instead, it feels like a prayer from the deepest part of me that has no words. It is the multi-layered bedrock of hope at the bottom of a dangerously deep current.
No lasting good can be accomplished without resurrection -- the conquering of death and corruption. There is no healing of all the damage we do, as individuals, nations, and members of the human race.
Bright colors of this holiday pale to gray hues when I consider the grief and betrayal and darkness that I know -- and I ponder the magnification of the volume of brokenness in all the people who have lived through all the ages. Prompted by a friend's remark, I mused on the followers of Jesus who watched and listened and were convinced that this was the One for whom they were waiting --the Healer of the Nations.
What blackness must have enveloped them as they witnessed the death of all their hope...dragged out over hours of agony. Where did they take their stunned devastation? I picture them staggering out, some to solitude, some in wounded companionship -- while their minds worked to process this unthinkable defeat.
Did they huddle in silence or wail aloud? Was every hour weighted with eternal despair or did time pass without being noted?
And yet.
On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.
It is unfashionable and unenlightened of me -- but I believe those words. I believe them as if my very life depends on the power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead.
Because, nothing is impossible in light of that truth.
And jelly beans are just an intrusion.
And yet.
On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.
It is unfashionable and unenlightened of me -- but I believe those words. I believe them as if my very life depends on the power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead.
Because, nothing is impossible in light of that truth.
And jelly beans are just an intrusion.
