Scary news, financial fears, world chaos? Easter offers a lesson for all of us
There’s a lot out there that can really be disturbing. A friend calls with some scary medical news; I start wondering about my own health. I check the stock market and become obsessed about money — will we ever have enough for retirement? I read a news story and see only suffering in the world. My whole sense of well-being gets out of whack.
What I need to remind myself — what is right there in the celebration of Easter — "Give it some time. Give it three days." Change is happening. Good things can come after complete horror. Give it three days.
Let me circle back to an old story, surely apocryphal, but sweet and helpful.
A woman goes to church on Easter Monday and as she leaves, she pauses to chat with a disheveled woman sitting on the steps selling corsages and boutonnieres — a meager means of making a living. And yet, despite her appearance, the old lady is full of smiles.
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"How is that even possible?" the woman coming out of the church wonders. She stops and talks with the lady.
No denying it. The flower seller has suffered. She reveals that. But Easter has just happened. What comfort there is in that. The pain and horror of Good Friday were turned into the power and mystery of the Resurrection. The magic of three days. "Whatever has happened to you," she says, "just wait three days."
As has often been pointed out, it’s the women in the Bible who witnessed the horror first-hand; Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, Mary the mother of Jesus, other women. It depends on which gospel account you’re reading. None of Jesus’s disciples are depicted as witnessing the crucifixion. It’s the women who stick it out, as awful as it must have been.
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But then, who are the first ones to witness the empty tomb, as they go there on the first day of the week, bringing spices to anoint the body, and find that the huge stone guarding it has been rolled away? It’s the women. An angel tells them that Jesus was raised from the dead. They were supposed to go tell the men. As the Gospel of Mark puts it, "They went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them…"
(In the Gospel of John’s account, Mary Magdalene, sitting there weeping, actually sees the risen Jesus, but doesn’t recognize him until he says her name, "Mary." Wow, isn’t that powerful? We know who Jesus is when he calls us by name.)
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Every year our church does a three-hour service on Good Friday. Ugh. I go and hear the gospel story. Sometimes fellow parishioners act out the passion story. It is all so sad. Must we retell it, re-live it, year after year?
And yet, in all of this, there is a helpful lesson. Yes, we do go through pain. We do witness terrible suffering. It’s important not to run away from it and hide. Recognize it. Take it in. Deal with it. See if and what it might be teaching you. As the wonderful priest and teacher Richard Rohr puts it, we learn from two things: love and suffering.
Note to self: Be aware of your own suffering and the world’s suffering. For there is something profound on the other side. You will see truth in all its wonder and beauty. What do you have to do? Just wait. Go for a walk. Sit in quiet meditation. Put away the phone for a while. Talk to a caring friend. Pick up a book. Put it down. Whatever. Wait a few days.
Wait three days. No telling what you will see.