Easter People

I’m not sure that I’m an Easter person as much as a Good Friday one. Cellos and minor keys tend to suit me more than trumpets and upbeat tunes. Sure, I like longer days and to see everything greening up, more hours to work outside and have driveway chats with neighbors. I like throwing open the windows to flush the house with fresh air. But I don’t mind the cold bite in the May breeze that means I need to have a jacket within reach.

We’ve been Easter people for two weeks now, but I’m still thinking about Good Friday at the church where Christian works as a soloist. It was a treat to take part in the intimate Tenebrae service of music and lessons. It was holy and thoughtful. Interspersed with settings of traditional hymns, the Passion was read by church members. While all of them were talented and prepared readers, one little girl of about nine or ten made the biggest impression on me. For her part in Good Friday, she had chosen to wear a spring dress, along with the shoes she likely wore with her Easter dress a couple of days later, and a big, pink, satin bow in her blond ponytail. What was so striking to me was the contrast of her age and appearance with the passage she read, where the soldiers mock and abuse Jesus (Mark 15:16-20). The little girl delivered the verses convincingly, with such a forceful voice and a stern expression, that I wondered if she had chosen that section or if it was part of a lesson she had been assigned.

When she finished reading, she smiled and almost bounced down the stairs from the pulpit. The lesson is a good one for me: to hold both the uncertainty and grief of Good Friday with the hope and happiness of Sunday morning. We would be wise to remember that those two things don’t have to be in tension to exist together. We are Easter people because we know the whole story.

Holy One,

Thank you for the lessons of the Lenten seasons in our lives, and that our own story is always being written and rewritten.

Amen

Eli is a worship leader at Peace. She’s been busy planting and pruning (and weeding!) this spring. Her garden, like lessons in aging, grief, growth, change…, is a work in progress.