Searching for Easter

Just a few minutes ago I found out that my friend's sister had a miscarriage. It's an incredibly painful thing to go through any time of year. But perhaps especially this time of year. Just as we are seeing signs of new life all around us, the flowers blooming, the birds chirping. And then for Christians, there's the business of the resurrection.

My friend is also a pastor and I find myself wondering how she will prepare to lead a congregation in celebrating the resurrection in just a few days. How do we even begin to wrap our head and our hearts around newness of life when the sting of death is so present? How do we celebrate an empty tomb when the only emptiness we experience is the void left by those we love and the tombs in our lives are full? How do we shout for joy when our hopes and dreams for the future have been crushed?

And yet, that's how the disciples must have felt on Easter morning. The very present sting of death, the empty seat at the table, the crushed hopes and dreams. Easter morning was greeted not with trumpets blowing and joyful shouts but with the painful reality of death. It's no wonder they didn't understand why the tomb was empty. When you're grieving it's hard enough to grasp that reality, let alone a new and impossible reality.

The resurrection makes no sense. And yet it is the only thing that makes sense out of this painful world we live in. And so as I face this day and the days to come with a heavy heart, grieving along side those who are grieving, I trust God to work the resurrection miracle again this day. I trust that the pain and the emptiness and the death that is felt by so many people today, it not the end. I trust that there is life after death. But I also trust that in our Good Friday moments and our silent, Holy Saturday moments where it seems like nothing is happening and death really does have the final say, I trust that even then, even now, God is working the resurrection miracle once again. I trust that Easter really is coming.