Posted April 1, 2021 in Featured News

by Susan Faye Wonderland
Transitional Executive, Synod of the Trinity

I can hardly wait for the alleluias of Easter morning — they feel long overdue this year — and the bursting of yellow across the church grounds where we live are a herald to this gift! 

Between COVID and the brokenness we have seen across our culture — we yearn for the promise of renewal; we are beyond ready for the presence of some miraculous force that can infuse us and propel us forward into a time and place where these last 13 months might be forgotten — might be relegated to the past, might be less sharp and biting in our every day! Yes? 

Surely, it must be that the pain of the cross and the emptiness of Holy Saturday that are with us now — perhaps have been with us for a while — will not go forward once Easter morning sunrise bursts into our line of sight and we shout the Hosannas and say with gusto whether virtually or face to face: He is Risen Indeed! 

Except — except that resurrection isn’t easy is it? It isn’t easy to receive or live — is it? 

I remember so well the beggar healed in Monty Python’s Life of Brian who pleaded to be returned to his broken state because he did not know how to live or make a living as a healed person! 

Fact check please: resurrection in this life is not something that usually happens in an instant or without effort to engage the brightness or wholeness of that new Easter existence. Truly, Easter morning IS the promise fulfilled — Alleluia, Christ is Risen  resurrection is here, now, eternally, but in our lives, living as people of resurrection, living into wholeness, embodying the promised reality of new life takes much grace and much work! 

Ask anyone who has journeyed the long road to healing in addiction. 

Ask anyone who has spent hours at a loved one’s bedside even after the doctors have said, “It’ll be alright.” 

Ask a couple struggling to move back from the brink of divorce. 

Ask anyone who has experienced racism or sexism after being told, “There will be no more, this will stop.” 

Ask the longtime friends, now viciously separated because of political opinions who long for their relationship and aren’t sure how to get there… 

Ask the family who has lost three loved ones to COVID and who can’t get the vaccine fast enough… 

What did Avery and Marsh say in that old song? Every morning is Easter morning from now on… And it is that simple — every morning is ripe with the promise of renewal and possibilities for new life because of Jesus: 

But we still have to do the work to get there, give it the time to get there. 

We still have to be transformed and changed to get there. 

We still have let go of brokenness and sin and receive a forgiveness to new life. 

Resurrection means that we can — with God’s help. 

And for that, I shout, “Alleluia. Christ is Risen. Amen and Amen! So be it!”