The pandemic-necessitated isolation doesn't help. Holiday outfits and trumpeting lilies usually brighten things up, but the sanctuaries are empty and - speaking purely for myself - "dressing up" seemed a little contrived. There are bulbs blooming, shrubs flowering, and fruit trees blossoming, but with nights in the 20's forecast for much of the week ahead, even those signs of promise strike a fearful, apprehensive and protective note. The rain, the thunder, the cold and the virus - everything feels a little small and contained. "Entombed," perhaps, which sounds appropriate for the day.
We fired up the internet and tuned into worship - first here, and then there. We have been religious omnivores throughout the weeks of this social distance, worshipping with friends and family and colleagues around town and around the country. More than once I have voiced my gratitude that I have not been faced with the challenge of packaging spiritual nourishment to be technologically delivered...in isolation. I continue to be grateful to my active peers for experimenting, growing, polishing, and, above all, doing their best to be presently faithful.
What I came to realize, as we worshipped our way around the country, is that what I was needing this Easter Sunday - what I ached for and craved and reached for and sang to - was grandeur. I wasn't hungry for theology, though that never hurts. I had no appetite for homiletical acrobatics or liturgical glitz. The gospel story, after all, has ample lungs to speak for itself. I hadn't the stomach for chocolate bunnies or plastic eggs stuffed with treats. I wasn't looking for forced gladness or the silliness that can leak out in awkward times of stress. I hadn't patience for, "we are going to make the best of this, never mind Covid-19."
It was largeness I was looking for; immensity, grandeur and awe.
Living on a farmstead with prairie and woods and wildlife and birds, grandeur is usually in abundant supply. We walk the trails, we step outside and hear the sounds; we pause and deeply inhale. We notice the tracks, we pause over buds, we pay our best attention to the particularities of feather and song and color and motion.
But I mentioned the rain, the lightening and thunder, the cold and the small-making isolation. We weren't likely to spending much time outside.
I needed grandeur - today of all days.
Something larger than myself.
Something larger than our isolation.
Something more immense than our present fear.
Something - not so much an insight or a dogma or a platitude or placation...
Something soul inflating.
What I needed was for us and our giddy contrivances to simply get out of the way and invite the story to do its work, to breath its breath of life, to pierce the dank moment with new and radiant light.
And here and there it happened - in songs both simple and grand; in silences both invited and reverenced; in words spoken with economy and humility; with faith born witness -
- for this day, and those to follow;In grace proclaimed and received.
It's raining, and cold, and the pandemic still necessitates protective caution. But the day is somehow larger now that the stone has been rolled away, and the grave clothes, neatly folded, have been set aside.
Larger, with a bit more grandeur...
...and light.
Happy Easter.
