Several years ago, on the first day of Holy Week, I was riding an RTA bus from
University Circle to Public Square in Cleveland. Sitting in the seats in front of me
and talking loudly, several folks were in conversation about their various
schedules for the coming week and their weekend plans. Suddenly, with great
excitement one said to the other, “Oh, I forgot. This coming Sunday is Easter!”
The comment took me by great surprise. As the pastor of a Christian congregation
where preparing and planning for the Lenten Season, Holy Week, and most
assuredly Easter Sunday is an annual months-long effort, I could not imagine
forgetting that the coming Sunday was Easter. Indeed, I certainly knew that if a
pastor were to be surprised by hearing the news that the upcoming Sunday was
Easter, she or he would likely be in a world of trouble!
My surprise at hearing a fellow bus rider say that they had forgotten the
upcoming Sunday was Easter also betrayed my immersion in the extensive and
expected preparations for the ritual observance of resurrection day. My surprise
also betrayed my singular religious perspective on a world that is both more
secular and filled with millions of people for whom Easter Sunday is NOT the
center of their spiritual perspective.
I often contemplate what it would be like to be unaware of Christian holy days or
live with no sense of the immanence of Easter. My contemplations always result
in the realization that such introspection is not useful. I cannot imagine the
absence of observing High Holy Days or the central faith affirmation of the Gospel
story.
But all that is another blog topic. What occurs to me at this writing is that those
fellow bus riders that day had an emotional element about Easter Sunday that is
too often scheduled out of a great many Christians; particularly those who
preside over its worship services. A great many Christians are not particularly
SURPRISED by the day and its message.
I suspect that my Rabbinical colleagues leading congregations and organizing the
regular worship observances in synagogue and temple at Passover may have
similar thoughts.
Whether it is the message of freedom from oppression and annual Seder
observances or whether it is the affirmation that death is not the end of all things
meaningful in life, the element of surprise of such truths can be absent from those
of us who affirm – in all manner of regular observance and expression – such
great and wonderful things.
There is a line at the end of the film version of Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby
that I have always found profound and meaningful. It is this: “In this life, no
matter how full or empty one’s purse, there is tragedy. It is the one promise that
life always fulfills. Therefore happiness is a gift. And the trick is not to expect it but
to rejoice in it when it comes…and to increase other people’s store of it.”
We need a time of rejoicing.
We all have lived through a year of great tragedy and loss. The evidence of this
tragedy, regardless of the cash in our wallets or the resources in any bank, is
overwhelming in pandemic casualty numbers, experiences in the lives of family
and friends, and in all the terrible disruptions caused by sequesters of all kinds.
But regardless, spring is here again. We are people who have been passed over to
be able to once again experience Easter. I hope that we will be surprised by it –
like the overwhelming benefits of a great vaccine – surprised by Easter hope. I
hope that we can rejoice in it.
In all the ways that ultimately matter, we do not die. The life of Jesus points to
this. The crosses we carry, the burdens that may come, and the limitations that
ultimately, we cannot control, are not the end of OUR story.
It is Easter! I wish for you a great sense of rejoicing and of happy SURPRISE!