Easter of 1971

My family lived in the suburbs of New York for a few years when I was growing up.  Among my memories of those years was Easter of 1971.  It snowed that year on Easter, which made Easter rather difficult to imagine.  I remember my dad driving to church that morning creeping along to avoid an accident in the slippery conditions.  Had Easter been any earlier than it was this year, it could well have been our experience in New York this year. 

As it turns out, though, this Easter is going to be nothing like the Easter of 1971. Spring has arrived.  We are surrounded by new life.  The weather this last weekend was particularly glorious.  It just feels the way I think Easter ought to feel.  It makes it rather easier to anticipate the coming celebration of the resurrection.

Of course, Easter is never more needed than when it is difficult to anticipate and impossible to imagine.  In truth, though, resurrection is difficult to imagine at any time.  Resurrection is always difficult to anticipate. 

In some parts of the world, Easter comes, not in the spring, but in the midst of shortening days and increasingly colder weather, not as flowers are blooming and trees are budding, but as the landscape turns brown and the leaves wither and fall, not as abundance and color return but as barrenness and dark approach.  Easter must be difficult to imagine.  It is never more needed.

I had time a few weeks ago with my oldest friend and his family.  I was glad to see his daughter, who had recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan.  I had been praying for her.  She returned safely, but not unaffected.  I think Easter may have become more difficult for her to imagine.  It has never been more needed.

Within the past year I have had parts in services on the death of a young single mother taken by Leukemia, of a young woman struggling with her identity as a transgendered person, and of a young Native American deacon whose ministry as a reconciler had placed him at the center of a church fight of international proportions.  It makes Easter difficult to imagine.  It has never been more needed. 

A senseless loss of life in Kansas, apparently motivated by hate, makes Easter difficult for us to imagine.  A mother’s loss of both her son and her father at the hands of a man described as a “raging anti-Semite” makes Easter difficult for us to imagine.  It has never been more needed. 

And Easter, I am sure, has never been more difficult to imagine than it was on the first one.  In the midst of hatred, loss, and broken dreams, resurrection catches us, as it did the first disciples, off guard, unprepared, and by surprise.  Still, Easter comes.  It came on the third day following Good Friday.  It came in 1971.  And it will come in 2014, just a few days from now. 

I’m pretty sure it is always equally needed. 

May this Easter come to you, whether it is difficult for you to imagine or not.  May light triumph over darkness even if the days grow shorter where you are.  May life overcome death even when death surrounds.  May love triumph over hate even when hate seems to have the upper hand.  Easter comes.  Easter comes especially when it is most needed. 

Happy Easter.

Peace,