Good morning and a Happy Easter to all. Though much time has passed, Thanksgiving and Christmas remain two of the most difficult days of the year for me. While it definitely helps to recall the countless ways God blesses me so much more than I deserve, there is no ignoring the empty chair at the Thanksgiving table. Though it certainly lifts my spirit to celebrate the birth of Jesus and the good news it brings to all men and women, there is still one less Christmas stocking to put up.
Easter, however, can never get here fast enough. After months where all around me is bleak and desolate, how I anticipate the arrival of Easter and its signal to the tulips to begin their blossom. After weeks where all I do is shiver, how I am eager for the coming of Easter and its capacity to reinstitute warm temperatures. After days where I am reminded of death's pervasive reach, how I await the onset of Easter and its proclamation that life does indeed go on.
As one with a fondness for music, I often carry a tune with me to last the day. This morning I woke with a song I’ve grown quite attached to in recent years. It is a song taken from Phil 3:10 and one I lead frequently at my church’s community meal on Wednesday nights. It goes, “ I want to know Christ and the pow’r of His rising, Share in His suffering, conform to His death; When I pour out my life to be filled with His Spirit, Joy follows suffering, and life follows death.”
It is the song’s last line that captures the powerful truth of Easter to which I cling. Since this is a broken world, it doesn’t take much to feel that I live an existence where the opposite seems more valid. A reality where suffering follows joy, and death follows life. But because God has seen fit to raise the sun on another Easter morning, I can boldly reject such false notions, decidedly cast out such deceitful impulses.
Instead, I choose to know Christ and the power of his unfailing promises. Despite times when my eyes can’t see it, I can trust Christ’s promise that my grief will not delay joy’s everlasting arrival. Though there are times when my heart can’t feel it, I can believe Christ’s promise that not even my death will postpone life’s eternal homecoming. Though grief starts at the cross on Good Friday, it is at the empty tomb on Easter where heartache ends. Thanks be to God.
