He is risen indeed

Easter was busy.  All the usual things... church,  hymns, egg hunts,  cinnamon rolls,  family dinner.  It was a beautiful day, but it was a blur. For me,  Easter really came Monday morning. 

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.

Easter was quiet.  The hustle of the weekend and the holiday had passed. Women who had cleaned up and made a to do list came,  first thing in the morning,  to honor their teacher.  They came to grieve.  They came to do as women do.  Finish the unfinished work.  

Monday morning was bright.  I had a house to clean.  But I had all day to do it.  I thought about those women. Life is usually rearranged by tragedy,  by more work,  by extra. It is so unusual to show up prepared to do caregiving and find caregiving is not needed. There is an empty space where work should have been. There is an empty space that fills with joy. 

I scrolled Instagram as I lazily cleaned.  A poignant writer I follow (@scottthepainter) had started a new series. 

"Stations of the resurrection"

I let myself resonate with the oddness of it. It is easy to slow down a mediate on the suffering of the cross. But with Easter,  we jump up, receive the good news and move on to chocolate and beer. 

This holy mystery.  Holiest.  Most mysterious of all holy mysteries.  And yet it's almost too much to look at,  to ponder.  So we tie it up with happy ever after and call it good. 

But there is a whole season to ponder this mystery.  There is a whole 40 days to let the light grow brighter as we travel to Pentecost. 

I had a beautiful joyful space on my quiet Easter Monday to reflect on those faithful women who went looking for Jesus. I have 40 days to journey the stations of the resurrection and allow my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the mystery of Easter.  

Thank you for traveling again with me through Lent.  It is a hard,  sacred journey and sharing it is such a gift. May your Easter season be bright and may your heart be filled. 

Amen.  

Day 42: Preparing for Easter

 

I am soooo tired after good Friday,  I've dragged myself to "It is finished. " I want to wake up the next morning to "He is risen." But Saturday is a vigil.  It is the empty space between death and resurrection.  It is timeless,  numb. A cloudy day after the storm on Friday before the sun shines on Easter morning. 

I peel myself out of bed and my mind starts to fill with all the preparation to be done - baking,  church clothes,  house cleaning.  My vigil day is laundry and baking.  Chores. 

A friend sent me a liturgy for holy Saturday.  

God is silent. 

"The silence of God is God."

I bake cinnamon rolls thinking about silent God. Thinking about my desire to skip straight to Easter.  Thinking about this gap between death and resurrection. Something ended,  something new not yet begun.  

I listened to "unimaginable " from Hamilton. 

It's quiet uptown. 

There are moments that the words don't reach

There's a grace too powerful to name

We push away what we can never understand

I grate carrots for carrot cake. I mix spices in.  I peel over ripe bananas and mash them into a bowl. 

I think about brokenness.... situations that have traveled with me this Lent and these lines --   Moments where words don't reach and a grace to powerful to name -- the silence of God on this holy vigil.  

I fill muffin tins.  I frost the cinnamon rolls.  I put the laundry in the dryer and get ready for bed.  

I lay down tonight holding on to that grace -- too powerful to name.  

The silence of God is God.  

Day 41: My favorite Good Friday service in years

For the first time in over a week,  everyone in the house felt good enough for an outing.  I took the older boys out to lunch at habit burger followed by a trip to the movie theater to watch the Mario movie that they've been waiting for months to see. Ulrich took the little guys out on a bug expedition.  Miles with a bug mesh cage and Zander on his teal scooter headed off down the trails to look for ladybugs and spiders. 

It was around 6pm when we landed back around the table together for dinner. I wanted do something for good Friday but wasn't sure what. I raised my thoughts and several options to the group. 

I explained the services that take place during Holy Week and how we haven't often gone because they are held at 7pm and it is hard for small children to be serious at that time of day and that those services are solemn and important for people to remember Jesus. I shared some alternative traditions - stations of the cross,  a family friend who reads the death of Aslan to her grandchildren as an annual Good Friday tradition.  I am my boys what should we do today to honor this day?

They decided they would like to have a service at home. I gathered our baptismal candles from the mantel along with a small stone cross. I turned on some contemporary Christian music that was good Friday related and I started lighting the candles. I started with our wedding candle and described our wedding and how we lit the candle together when we got married. Then I got Eddie's candle,  Andrew's,  Phillips,  miles and Zanders. I described each person's baptism.  All of them baptized somewhere between good Friday and Easter morning. 

We talked about the ancient church and Lent and confirmation and baptism. We talked about Easter vigil and how early believers were baptized at the vigil and why I chose the vigil as the moment I wanted them to join God's family.  

I extinguished the candles and we sat in the dark.  

"We are baptized into the darkness and loneliness of Good Friday. Sometimes following Jesus means we go to dark and lonely places. But (lighting the 1st candle) Jesus is our light and his light could not be put out on good Friday. (Lighting the rest of the candles) we are baptized into the light of Easter morning. The love of Jesus that can't ever leave us."

The children are quiet,  laying on the floor,  wrapped around our tiny alter. 6 pillar candles wrapped around a small stone cross. 

I read the passion story from John. 

I am each child if there was something in the story that they didn't know or that surprised them or struck them. Each shared. 

I asked them to grab their candles and hold them and think about baptism and good Friday and Easter. Their faces serious in the candle light. It was a holy moment. 

We each picked our favorite hymns and played them on my phone. 

We blew out the candles and returned them to the mantel.  I told the kids we still had time for a movie or some other activity before bed. 

"It's good Friday. We should just be together. Just sit together. " 

So we did.  We spent the evening in the room. Little ones playing on the floor with tinker toys and stuffed animals. The rest of us lounging on the couch,  snacking and chatting about books and movies,  ideas and this and that. 

It was a holy moment. It was like family after a funeral just being together, holding space,  holding a moment. It was like the moment I was hanging out in the old crabapple tree with all my cousins after my grandpa's funeral.  We were just together.  Talking about things. 

This holy vigil with my small tribe felt like good Friday in a way that was deeper than the dramatic retelling of the passion with rough voices or of the sound of the pounding nails. 

And,  as I put them to bed,  I feel the heavy words. "It is finished. "

Thank you,  Jesus. 

Day 40: Jesus wept

I'm getting restless. 

We've been home all week.  Wading through homework and chores. Getting better but still a little sick.  The baby still congested.   A series of phone calls and text messages land heavy on my heart. 

Jesus wept. 

He came to his friend who had just died.  He knew he would raise him,  but still,  he cried.  

Days later in the garden, he prayed.  "Take this cup from me. " 

He didn't want to do the hard part

He didn't want to but he did. 

I don't like holy week, but there is no other way to reach Easter.  I don't like holy week,  but it's the way to end Lent.  

I cup my arms around my uneventful day,  my sick baby,  my heavy phone calls and I feel the feelings.  Disappointed about the deflated sprint break.  Concerned about the baby's health.  Frustrated about the pile homework. Sad about my friend's situation.  Sad about the trauma some people face.  Sad about conflict and pain people cause each other. Wishing Jesus would just hurry up and come back because we're not doing great. Feeling tired from lack of sleep.  

I felt all my feelings today and I thought about Christ.  I thought about what he felt and what he went through, feeling small and petty next to his great suffering. 

In his humanness,  Jesus made space for my feelings, however petty they may be in the big picture of things. Jesus made space for his own feelings and he allowed himself to feel them.  He allowed his disciples to witness them and write them down as a key part of his humanity. 

Jesus wept. Jesus prayed. Jesus asked for another path.

Day 39: good good gifts

 

Our unplanned spring break has resulted in a Harry Potter marathon.  It's our fourth time through the series.  We've been listening to the book all day and then watching the movie at night... which,  as we are getting to later books will not be possible.  

Zander is still a bit under the weather.  He has been spending long swatches of the day snuggling into me. His small body is a perfect Teddy bear.  

Tonight as we were finishing movie 3, I sent the boys off to bed while I finished cradling Zander to sleep. The only sound was his slightly wheeze little breathes.  His warm body wrapped around me,  warm and soft in his little footy pajamas.  

I thought about all the possibilities and how many life paths could have existed without him in it.  He could have never been.  

I held him tighter. My heart enfolded in gratitude.  How could my life not have him in it?

As much as I struggle with my inability to understand how to solve this world's pain,  I could never have guessed that motherhood would complete me the way it has.  I couldn't have guessed that I would love like this. And I definitely wouldn't have predicted that a 5th baby boy would make my world so complete. 

In faith,  I continue to learn to open my heart to what comes and let myself be grown and shaped by it. 

This beautiful wonderful 2 year old light is such a precious gift from God. I am so grateful for him.  

Day 38: is following Jesus a good idea?

Our spring break has not been going to plan. Everyone got sick at various points and husband had unexpected work obligations that blew up life and left us in that empty space between the end of one plan and the beginning of a new one.  

I've been living moment to moment.  Checking the weather.  Checking kids.  Figuring out who's healthy and what people need. I've been trying to piece together days not having a full plan to go from and trying to get enough ahead of the moment to be able to make good use of the coming days. 

Change.  Even small change like this.  Can feel uncomfortable.  I think,  as I've gotten older,  change feels even more scratchy against my grains. I'm better at planning and predicting,  I think,  than when I was young.  But also,  I think,  when I was young,  I was growing and changing constantly.  It was the natural state of life.  But I'm older,  I've placed stakes. I bought a house and brought all my babies home here.  I have memories too precious for words in this home and I have a hard time imagining any other place to live.

 I've been married for so long, I know how to live as two. I am starting to forget living a one.  I've been a mother so long,  I can't imagine not waking every day and caring for someone. 

But eventually,  we move,  our children grow and sadly our lives as two become a life of one if we live long enough. 

Jesus's disciples were blown apart when he died.  It wasn't the ending most of them were expecting.  They locked themselves in that room where they all had that last meal and wondered what now. There was a long empty pause between where one plan ended and another had not yet arrived. 

Every time Jesus met someone one the road,  there was the same invitation to be blown apart.  "Come,  follow me "

Can you imagine? You go out to check your mail one morning.  There's a crowd down the street.  You wander over to see what's going on.  The next thing you know,  you are on a flight to Chicago texting your spouse that you won't be home for a while. 

I might tell myself that Jesus doesn't do that kind of change anymore.  I might be able to tell myself I've already followed Jesus and made the big changes so there is no more apple cart dumping in my life. 

But holy week silences that notion. Following Jesus isn't a single upheaval that comes with the decision to leave and follow.  It is the upheaval that comes day after day following Jesus who turns the world upside down. 

Sometimes,  I have to let go of my own plan for my day,  my life,  my children,  my community,  this world. Perhaps my vision of where it should go and what I should do is is merely my own feeble attempt to make my mark.  Jesus keeps turning the world over and faith is to trust that his plan,  though it often doesn't make sense,  is better. 

This foolishness of self sacrifice,  loving enemies, taking the low spot and eating with sinners.  This foolishness of following an impoverished renegade who doesn't promise safety or stability for me or my children.  It doesn't read well as self- help literature. 

But here we are in holy week.  The cross squarely, largely looming at the end of this road.  And Jesus still says... follow me.  

Day 37: But why the cross?

I hate that the cross is part of the story.  I just want to skip from palm Sunday to Easter and miss holy week all together.  Why didn't God choose a different way?

I'm tired.  I'm ready to be done with Lent.  I'm ready to drink a diet coke and let my kids binge on video games. Why do I have to be a little sick with a sick baby and bumble through holy week.  Why can't Easter just come?

Phone calls with friends and family. Heart ache.  Hardship.  Hard choices. Why do we still live in a broken world? Why didn't Jesus just fix it all?

News stories.  Division.  War.  Tragedy.  Anger. 

We are just as broken now as we were then.  We just have more technology.

Jesus rode into Jerusalem knowing the path he was on.  Knowing the disciples wouldn't understand or even stand by him.  Knowing that the day would end looking like darkness has won.  

We use symbols like butterflies and lambs and eggs to represent life after death.  A dying of self to be torn apart and rearranged.  I think this symbols are apt.  But I think the cross is more.  It is a willingness to face hell.  The darkest of dark.  The deepest of fallen states.  To go to the most redeemed places and break them. 

God loves us in our darkness. God has visited our very darkest places just to be with us in it.  Just to redeem us from it.  

I think about the darkness crowding in around me this week.  All the sorrowful situations and I know God is present in it, deeply. 

I don't understand the mystery of the cross but I do know it's power.  There is no place we can go where God cannot,  will not go with us.

Day 36: Ugly photographs

 

It was an Ash Wednesday moment.  This body,  this face is going to deteriorate and one day decay.  It's a hard thought on a random Tuesday while trying to tidy up. 

I was cleaning up and an unused passport photo fell out of a file folder.  I don't know why passport photos are among the worst I've ever taken but this one was almost terrifying to look at.  My glasses were off as required and my face seemed to be melting off. Drooping and sagging in ways and in places that in not used to seeing in the mirror. 

I pondered my picture.  Was it bad lighting or do I really look like that? Should I look into skin creams.... I'm not that old. Our culture is obsessed with youth and beauty.  But I think human culture really always has been.  We don't see fat,  saggy marble statues from the Renaissance. We don't like to be reminded of aging and death.  

Jesus was unrecognizable after resurrection. I always wonder what that meant.  How could he look so different that he was not recognized by his best friends? 

There is only one time I can remember not being recognized by someone close to me.  I was in a wedding and I was dressed up with make up and contacts.  Eddie was just a toddler and had been babysat during the ceremony but was joining the reception.  When they brought him to me I was standing with the wedding party.  He looked bewildered at the group not really recognizing anyone. It wasn't until I spoke his name that he knew it was me.  It was the same in the story of Jesus with the disciples.  When he spoke and breathed on them,  they knew who he was. 

I always imagine that resurrection bodies are free from the fall - affliction,  disability,  disease,  aging. Are they conformed to human ideals of youth and beauty also... or are they somehow perfected in a way we cannot grasp?

Either way,  Ugly photographs are important. They jar me and get a reaction that both pushes me to acknowledge who I am in this moment and that I am mortal and I will age and my body will change in ways that I disagree with. They also give me a picture of my health and remind me when I need more sleep,  more exercise,  less stress or to eat better.  They put my vanity in check. 

And,  when I see ugly pictures of beautiful people, I realize that we are all on a journey with and in our bodies that are being broken down and built up. The face age and infection and trauma. 

Ugly pictures are part of being human.  

God loves our ugliest self. 

Day 35: Actually resting on the Sabbath

I went in to urgent care yesterday because I couldn't quite catch my breath and my cough was a whole two levels worse than usual.  Enough for me to wonder if I needed more than my standard "fight off colds" medicines. 

I was on the fence about going because frankly,  I got five kids and I don't got time for that.  But as I hemmed and hawwed I decided I would rather take time,  get meds now (if they will actually do anything) rather than spend the next two months trying to recover from whatever this was.  Plus both my mom and my mother in law said I sounded terrible and should go.  

So I went.  

As predicted,  the whole ordeal took like 4 hours and the kids ran completely wild while I was gone.  But I did find out that I had developed mild pneumonia and was sent home with a host of remedies to ameliorate the problem. 

The baby also had some sort of cold.  So instead of a litany of palm Sunday activities and a first birthday for a friend's baby.  I laid in bed watching endless vehicle themed children's programs,  occasionally getting up to pick up a round of dishes off the living room floor or rescue play dough out of the match car bin. It was strange because I wasn't acutely sick like when you have the flu.  More just easily winded.  Get up for a bit, do stuff,  plop on the couch.  My body just wanted to rest. 

Generally, laying around and doing nothing is rather unrejuvinating for me.  I get more rest from a long day in nature followed by a good night's sleep.  Laying around tends to send my mind to weird places and can make me a little anxious knowing that there are kids to be cared for,  house to clean and things to be done.  Even when I went on a girl's trip and the kids were cared for, I found I had a really hard time not moving.  My body likes exercise. So I walk the beach rather than lay on it. 

But today,  my body did not have gas in the tank.  So I thought about rest and sabbath,  productivity and the value I assign myself for getting things done.  I thought about our busy culture and over scheduled lives.  And how I would never dream of spending half of Sunday,  or any day,  in bed unless I was sick. Or how I would find meaning in life if I found myself bed ridden. 

Then. I thought about Jesus. 

Today Jesus rode into Jerusalem knowing he wouldn't leave.  All the thoughts about myself pale in comparison.  We are at the start of holy week where we witness what it looks like to die to self and be filled fully with love. 

Day 34: Let it burn

 I don't read the news often.  Especially triggering news like school shootings.  It's enough for me to know that there was one.  Much more detail than that and my empathetic heart breaks too much. But whatever the state of my heart,  I stand convicted reading another headline.  I haven't personally done enough to change the world around me. 

I spent the better part of a week engaged in debate about the world's big problems - war,  racism, poverty,   climate change. And part of me wrestled with what we as individuals could even do about these things. Even if we somehow managed to bridge the tribal partisanship that plagues our current politics,  big problems are hard to tackle.  Even good ideas can only make small incremental dents. 

But there are problems we can fix. We just let pride and blaming the other guys stand in the way of humility that we need to accept that certain parts of our culture,  our communities and our policies aren't working.  

In Genesis,  God was so fed up with people and just turned on the rain until there was just one righteous family left. Perhaps if humanity started with good people,  we would stay on track.  But it didn't work.

My heart aches that there are mothers who are burying innocent children because of senseless  violence. All around the world. 

My heart aches that there a mother who's child was so broken that she saw no other way than violence. That mother grieves double and she buries her child alone. 

My heart aches for a friend who's toddler is entering hospice. 

My heart aches for the Ukrainians and for the Africans who suffer energy shortages because of a war in Europe. 

And sometimes I just want to burn it all down. 

A flood or a fire or some aliens that could help this earth start over. 

But Genesis shows us that burning it down doesn't work.  Doesn't fix the grief.  Doesn't heal humanity. 

God shows us a new path. God came down to join us. To suffer at our hands.  To walk through hell with us. To be present in our darkest moments. 

To change the story. 

The worst thing that can happen is not the final word. The brokenness of creation is not beyond repair. We don't need to burn down this earth to build a new one. 

The Holy mystery of Easter is that somewhere being the veil of our understanding lies a new heaven and a new earth and in the depths of our brokenness,  there is no place unreachable by the love of God. 

I will never come close to understanding this gospel.  But I lean hard into this beautiful mystery and a Easter draws near I can feel it in my bones. 

We are entering holy week.  Jesus walks deep into the heart of human darkness.  He experiences hell after hell until there is no more darkness left to throw at him.  And at the foot of that terrible cross I despair at how terrible we were... how terrible we still are. 

But Christ does not let hell have the final word.  He comes back to us and greets us with peace and breathes upon us and heals us all.