Easter & Waiting

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdelene, went to the tomb and saw the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciples and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” – John 20:1-2

My favorite thing about Jesus is that he brings dead things back to life. 

That seems especially poignant as we approach an Easter in a world that seems to be touched more closely by death than life these days. As the world has gone dormant – because that’s the way we can love our neighbors & keep our loved ones safe – it might seem like our hearts are beginning to go dormant as well.

Activity has slowed down, anxiety has risen. As days turned to weeks, and then became months of possible loss & quiet, the things we’ve pushed away or ignored begin to rise up in our souls. The losses we’ve felt. The hurt we’ve carried. The fear finding in the cracks of our souls. 

I’m reading news reports of daily death tolls & looking out my windows to see new buds on the trees. Loss juxtaposed with life. Death & resurrection. Good Friday & Easter Sunday in some beautiful, painful, mashed-up mix tape of the world.

There’s part of me that thinks that this is actually the way Easter is meant to be experienced. The joy & sorrow all at once. Death of old ways & birth of new ones. 

The loss is real. We can feel it. We can weep, just like Mary. And in our weeping, we can know something she didn’t. That rather than dashing our hope of a Savior, the cross fulfilled our wildest dreams and opened the doors to abundant life. To the renewal of all things

Because we know that hope is true, we can release our sorrow into the joy. The loss is not the end of the story and the resurrection hits us with that right in front of our faces.

As much as I feel like Mary in the garden, weeping for what was lost, I want to be Mary in the garden meeting Jesus. I want, more than anything, for everything to be made right now. Because the joy of having a risen Savior never felt more real to me than after I had met death. 

This–this crazy, strange, unimaginable season–is not the end of the story. And that gives more meaning to the resurrection & to God’s power over death than anything else I’ve experienced.

“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don’t know where they have put him!”

Mary’s words feel all too real, all too relatable, this Easter. Our normal and everything we know about Easter is gone. Our Lord doesn’t feel present in the same way. The tomb feels empty. The celebrations feel hollow.

Because the tomb is empty. Our idols have been pulled from our hands. This Easter, it’s us & Jesus. Truly. 

Join him in the garden and see what is dead come back to life– even if it’s just in our own souls.

Then Mary Magdalene left to inform the disciples of her encounter with Jesus, “I have seen the Lord!” she told them. And she gave them his message.