I have intentionally chosen this slightly irreverent but wonderfully humorous image for my FB banner to celebrate Easter.
I read somewhere that this is being called "The Easter of Empty Churches". It is also "The Passover of Empty Synagogues" and will be "The Ramadan of Empty Temples."
And yet, empty or not, Passover has happened and the Counting of the Omer has begun in earnest. it is still Easter, and Christ is risen. It will be Ramadan and the fasting and reflecting and prayers will continue as they have for centuries.
I know it is expected that religious folk will say something profound and meaningful about this pandemic. Something about the moral lessons we are learning because we clearly needed to learn them - that's why all this bad stuff is happening.
We are expected to say something that is a slightly more sophisticated version of how we've displeased Big Daddy or Big Mama in the Sky and so 'bad things happen to good people' who have just forgotten whose planet this is, anyway and that's why we can't have nice things.
Well, I got nothin'. Not anything that's deep or profound or even remotely meaningful.
Not today. Probably not tomorrow, either. Or, the day after that.
Here's what I got, which will amply demonstrate that I have a firm grasp on the obvious: This pandemic was caused by a virus. Viruses don't have intellect. Neither do they have reason. They do seem to have skill, however. They are quite skilled at what their evolutionary process has given them.
It is we who have intelligence and reason and skill to marshall those God-given gifts to tame this wild, invisible beast who has gotten out of control and doesn't have the capacity to understand whose planet this is, anyway.
Meanwhile, religious people will still observe the important dates on the calendar. The calendar is an interesting human invention that was created to give us some sense of control over this thing called 'time'. Which, by the way, is not at all linear, as the calendar and the clocks would have us believe.
The wonderful, delightful, irreverently humorous thing about the illusion of control of calendars and clocks is that Easter, of all religious observances is about God's message to us that time - or, rather, capital T. i. m. e. - is in God's hands. The Resurrection is about how our time as mortals is finite but God's time is infinite, and Jesus came to shatter our sense of control and open our minds to the limitlessness of the universe.
And so, I think at least a wee bit of irreverent humor and laughter is in order for this day.
Meister Eckhart is one of my favorite mystics. I've always loved what he says about laughter:
I think, if you drilled down to the center of the earth, the sound you would hear is laughter. And that laughter is there not because life is absurd but because we are. And our human absurdity gives enormous pleasure and joy to the One who created us in the most absurd of all human emotions: Love.
So, I think the greatest statement of faith we can make on this Easter of the Empty Churches is to laugh.
To laugh with a God who can not be destroyed by monstrous suffering, nor contained by stone graves.
To laugh with a God whose laughter can be heard in the joy of the jonquil and the color of tulips and the soft, subtle beauty of the willow.
To laugh with a God who absolutely melts in the delight of our inventions of calendars and clocks and other illusions of control and allows us to live out of and into our illusions with impunity.
To laugh with a God whose empty tomb taught us centuries ago about a lesson of God's fullness which we are still trying to understand.
To laugh with a God who is both timeless and timely, who is the very essence of the paradox of breath - two opposite truths, both inhale and exhale, without which we will most certainly die - which is wrapped in a conundrum and sealed in mystery.
So, my friends, my wish for you this Easter Day is that exquisite, unspeakable, unfathomable joy that the disciples first knew - Mary and "the other Mary" first among them - the joy of God and Jesus and Ruach who is laughing with sheer delight that maybe, just maybe THIS year - of all years - this year of the COVID-19 Pandemic, we will come closer to understanding the gift of Resurrection, and so more deeply cherish the gift of this one limited, finite yet eternal life.
At 10 AM this morning - well, it will be 10 AM where I am but it may be an hour or, perhaps two or even three hours different where you are, time being what it is - it will be my privilege to preside at a service of ante-Communion. My fast from Eucharist will continue until we can all be together again and all have a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.
The service will be broadcast on Facebook Live - in something called "real-time" which I'm sure makes Jesus giggle uncontrollably - over at Christ Church, Milford, DE's page. C'mon over and share in a little Easter joy!
Alleluia! The Lord is Risen!
The Lord is Risen, indeed! Alleluia!
I read somewhere that this is being called "The Easter of Empty Churches". It is also "The Passover of Empty Synagogues" and will be "The Ramadan of Empty Temples."
And yet, empty or not, Passover has happened and the Counting of the Omer has begun in earnest. it is still Easter, and Christ is risen. It will be Ramadan and the fasting and reflecting and prayers will continue as they have for centuries.
I know it is expected that religious folk will say something profound and meaningful about this pandemic. Something about the moral lessons we are learning because we clearly needed to learn them - that's why all this bad stuff is happening.
We are expected to say something that is a slightly more sophisticated version of how we've displeased Big Daddy or Big Mama in the Sky and so 'bad things happen to good people' who have just forgotten whose planet this is, anyway and that's why we can't have nice things.
Well, I got nothin'. Not anything that's deep or profound or even remotely meaningful.
Not today. Probably not tomorrow, either. Or, the day after that.
Here's what I got, which will amply demonstrate that I have a firm grasp on the obvious: This pandemic was caused by a virus. Viruses don't have intellect. Neither do they have reason. They do seem to have skill, however. They are quite skilled at what their evolutionary process has given them.
It is we who have intelligence and reason and skill to marshall those God-given gifts to tame this wild, invisible beast who has gotten out of control and doesn't have the capacity to understand whose planet this is, anyway.
Meanwhile, religious people will still observe the important dates on the calendar. The calendar is an interesting human invention that was created to give us some sense of control over this thing called 'time'. Which, by the way, is not at all linear, as the calendar and the clocks would have us believe.
The wonderful, delightful, irreverently humorous thing about the illusion of control of calendars and clocks is that Easter, of all religious observances is about God's message to us that time - or, rather, capital T. i. m. e. - is in God's hands. The Resurrection is about how our time as mortals is finite but God's time is infinite, and Jesus came to shatter our sense of control and open our minds to the limitlessness of the universe.
And so, I think at least a wee bit of irreverent humor and laughter is in order for this day.
Meister Eckhart is one of my favorite mystics. I've always loved what he says about laughter:
“When God laughs at the soul and the soul laughs back at God, the persons of the Trinity are begotten. When the Father laughs at the Son and the Son laughs back at the Father, that laughter gives pleasure, that pleasure gives joy, that joy gives love, and that love is the Holy Spirit.”
So, I think the greatest statement of faith we can make on this Easter of the Empty Churches is to laugh.
To laugh with a God who can not be destroyed by monstrous suffering, nor contained by stone graves.
To laugh with a God whose laughter can be heard in the joy of the jonquil and the color of tulips and the soft, subtle beauty of the willow.
To laugh with a God who absolutely melts in the delight of our inventions of calendars and clocks and other illusions of control and allows us to live out of and into our illusions with impunity.
To laugh with a God whose empty tomb taught us centuries ago about a lesson of God's fullness which we are still trying to understand.
To laugh with a God who is both timeless and timely, who is the very essence of the paradox of breath - two opposite truths, both inhale and exhale, without which we will most certainly die - which is wrapped in a conundrum and sealed in mystery.
So, my friends, my wish for you this Easter Day is that exquisite, unspeakable, unfathomable joy that the disciples first knew - Mary and "the other Mary" first among them - the joy of God and Jesus and Ruach who is laughing with sheer delight that maybe, just maybe THIS year - of all years - this year of the COVID-19 Pandemic, we will come closer to understanding the gift of Resurrection, and so more deeply cherish the gift of this one limited, finite yet eternal life.
At 10 AM this morning - well, it will be 10 AM where I am but it may be an hour or, perhaps two or even three hours different where you are, time being what it is - it will be my privilege to preside at a service of ante-Communion. My fast from Eucharist will continue until we can all be together again and all have a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.
The service will be broadcast on Facebook Live - in something called "real-time" which I'm sure makes Jesus giggle uncontrollably - over at Christ Church, Milford, DE's page. C'mon over and share in a little Easter joy!
Alleluia! The Lord is Risen!
The Lord is Risen, indeed! Alleluia!
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