Party poppers and the Covid-Crisis. How should we be celebrating this Easter? 

Photo by Diana Vargas on Unsplash
 

We had an interesting discussion on the men’s whatsapp group today about what are appropriate Easter celebrations in the present situation. Here are some reflections that may help us to think through how we each celebrate Easter.

1.Everything has changed. Nothing has changed.

We are all caught in this conflict between life seeming going on, and yet everything has changed.
 
In a previous post I described sitting looking out an upstairs window.

The sun was setting in washes of red sky over the church tower. A normal clear spring evening. And then I looked at the windows of the houses and all the same people now locked down.

Nothing has changed. Everything has changed.

2.Everyone is different. We are all in this together

This is affecting everyone:

people’s whole selves are affected – they may feel all sorts of strange symptoms because the body is reacting to the fact that they are not safe. Emotions will be all over the place in surprising ways. Concentration may be difficult. … it is normal to be up, down, energetic, exhausted, afraid.
[Christopher Southgate, Carla Grosch-Miller and Hilary Ison
Tragedies and Christian Congregations Project www.tragedyandcongregations.org.uk]

 
We are in this together. Yet we will be experiencing it in our own unique way, even amongst those of us in the same household.

When talking with grieving families I often say that grief is a lonely journey which we do together.

This situation is similar.

Everyone is processing and coping differently; together. 

3.Death is more real. Death is just as real as before.

Confronted with a daily death toll, we can no longer hide from our mortality.
 
And yet, the Bible says we are “destined to die once and then face judgment.” (Heb 9:27).
 
My Dad in morbid cheerfulness used to say there are only two certain things in life: death and taxes (and not necessarily in that order).
 
It has been like that since Genesis 3 (apart from the taxes!). But right now our human fragility and finitude is painfully exposed.

4.We can’t do anything. We desperately do what we can

We are faced with an enemy we can’t see and a problem medical science cannot (at present) solve. We are left only to our body’s own immune system. We are helpless. 
 
So we do all we can.

We take paracetamol, sing happy birthday twice, keep 2m away and hoard toilet roll. We want to do something if we possibly can.

We are confronted with our own inability. So we do all we can.

5.People are giving their lives to save others. We stay at home.

NHS staff and key-workers are putting themselves at risk to serve us. And we… well, we stay at home, wash our hands, shop on-line and take our one bit of exercise each day.

We want to honour those who are serving and those who are suffering in illness or grief.  We want to stand with them.

6.We are all unique, serving the one Lord Jesus Christ

Our heavenly Father has made us all unique, but we are united together in Jesus by the one Holy Spirit. We will all be responding to the above five things in different ways at different times on different days and in different situations.
 
How we walk through this most special of Christian weeks will be unique to each one of us. Please don’t feel under any pressure to celebrate Easter in any particular way. Do what is right between you, your household and the Lord.

That brings me to:

7.Easter is a fixed event every year. Easter is a journey.

We know what is coming (in terms of Easter). We know the story. 
 
And yet each year we are on a journey. We don’t simply parachute into Easter Sunday.

We travel through the devastating emotions of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, travelling with the strange assurance that Jesus is doing this all in love and has it covered.
 
We enter the unsettling pause that is Easter Saturday. Is it expectant grief or devastating loss? Everything waits.
 
Then dawn breaks. Jesus’ heart beats again – for you and for me. New indestructible life bursts from the grave.  Easter Sunday has come.
 
Andrew Peterson sings:

He took one breath
And put death to death
Where is your sting, O grave?
How grave is your defeat
I know, I know his heart beats 

It is worth thinking about how we each bring the range of emotions we are all feeling into the journey of the next few days.

Because, in these unsettling days…

8.The gospel is the same good news. The gospel is the most glorious news.

To see the glory of a diamond jewellers put it against a black velvet background.
 
The good news of Jesus is the same as it was a year ago. But the background is now darker (perhaps closer to life 2000 years ago?). Against this darkness, the jewel of the good news of who God is and what he has done shines much brighter.
 
This is not just news of trite happiness, it is news of profound joy in desperate grief.
 
It is news that sin and evil and death are very real enemies, but Jesus has fought them all and triumphed. 
 
It is news that human selfishness will so often choose self-interest in a crisis (deserting, denying, betraying, handing over Jesus), but God’s self-giving love wins over it all.
 
It is news that in the sinking sand of this world, God is an undefeatable rock and refuge.
 
It is news that humanity is adept at creating its own disasters –such as murdering the Son of God, or abusing creation so that a virus crosses to humans – but God’s powerful love uses even our greatest evil to bring great good.
 
It is news that we, in petulance or ignorance, stick up one finger at God, but God the Father runs after us wanting us back.
 
It is news that we get ourselves hopelessly lost, but Jesus in love comes to find us and bring us home.
 
It is news that even as we desert God and turn on each other, Jesus gives his life to bring us back together.
 
It’s the same good news as last month, as last year. But faced with all the uncertainties, the good news of Jesus shines brighter. It is more glorious. More joy-giving. Jesus gave his life and won the victory. Disease and death do not have the final say!

 
So let’s walk the journey of that first Easter, in our own way as appropriate to each of us and our household.

Please do what is right for you. We come individually to the Lord. We are the Lord’s servants, answerable to him.
 
And we come together. We don't let all that is happening over-shadow Jesus. We come to Jesus in the shadow.
We bring all our fears, our griefs, our tears to Jesus as he walks purposefully to the cross. And we look up - oh how we need to look up. We look up and see love incarnate crying with us, crying for us, breathing his last for us. And then on the third day we go into that tomb with those women… 

Come and join the journey in the way that is appropriate for you; and, in love, support each other on it as we together look to the one who is our Saviour, Lord and only hope.