“I was thinking that it might do some good
If we robbed the cynics and took all their food
That way what they believe will have taken place
And we can give it to people who have some faith
So please be careful with me, I’m sensitive
And I’d like to stay that way.”
- Jewel
I’m not sure why, but as I grow older Holy Week and Easter mean so much more to me than I ever thought they would. I grew up in the church and so Easter was a time of bonnets and new dresses, coloring the empty tomb by numbers in Sunday School, and a big basket with a chocolate egg. Even when I moved beyond the coloring books (not the new clothes or chocolate eggs), I found that the story was a bit stale. I had heard it all before and well, churchy folks hear it every time we have communion. We know how it ends.
But in recent years, I tear up when I hear Jesus get betrayed by his trusted friend. I wince when his back is shredded by the whip. And I ache when he breathes his last. I’m not bragging. I’m confused. I didn’t expect this emotion. So, naturally, I need to explore it.
Tonight, Maudy Thursday, the altar at church was stripped. Our cross wears a black veil. And the other sacred elements are sealed in the sacristy until Easter morning. While the ministers disrobed the place where the sacrament of the body and blood takes place, I pondered my new-found passion during this Passion-ate time. And of course what comes to mind but Harry Potter.
While most of you know the story, indulge me an explanation: Harry lost his mother and father when he was but a year old to an evil wizard named Voltemort. Harry comes to wizarding school and is thrown into the battle between good wizards and those who follow the still living Voltemort. In his fourth year, Voltemort tries once more to kill Harry and in the process, Harry’s friend Cedric Diggory is murdered by the evil wizard. When Harry returns to school the next year he notices that the “magical” carriages that seemingly carried the students to the school without the aid of horses, did indeed have horses – skeletal horses. Not everyone could see them. Only those who have seen death, who have experienced tragedy at that level and retained that experience could see them. Because Harry has seen his friend die, he is gifted with a deeper sight.
I think the living of my life and the pain that necessarily goes with that living has made me see Easter with a deeper sight. As a child, I readily accepted the resurrection as the natural course of events, because we value stories with happy endings. As I’ve grown older, I’ve seen death in my family. I’ve seen lives of friends stripped of their altars by cancer and job loss. I’ve seen faithful people bereft of any faith for a God who would abandon them. I’ve seen heroes lie and cheat and steal. And I’ve not seen these folks recover. I’ve been gifted with seeing them reduced to bare bones without the benefit of seeing their resurrection.
So when Jesus cries, “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27) it rings true, truer than I want to remember. The Passion story reminds me that I’ve not grown insensitive throughout the years, as might be the case with those who see death up close and personal. If anything I’ve grown more susceptible to the stories of loss and I’ve become painfully aware of what that night must have been for him and his friends and his family. Jesus was really one of us and he remained sensitive until the end, hurt beyond all hurt that God was not there to take the hurt away.
And so this Sunday, this Easter, when our church cries, “Hallelujah!” for the first time in six weeks, for me it won’t be just a happy ending to a story I know well. It is a cry of defiance in a world where I don’t always get to see the end of the story. It is an insolent and rebellious shriek against the forces of evil that take away the love in this world and leave families destitute and shredded in the wake of that which we cannot control. It is a mutinous song for the sake of Jesus, because even if I don’t always see the resurrection, I claim it. I claim it. I claim it. Hallelujah!
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I volunteer with an organization called Safe Harbor doing hospital accompaniment when there is a case of sexual or domestic assault. I wasn’t on call yesterday, but there was a mix up in the schedule so in the midst of that beautiful spring afternoon I walked into a hospital emergency room to be the presence of Christ for someone who was badly beaten and at an utter loss as to how another family member could have done it. The patient talked and I listened to a story I’ve heard in many different ER rooms many times before – sometimes in a language I don’t even know. It’s a story of love and trust that turns to betrayal and violence, despair and disbelief.
When we left I promised someone from Safe Harbor would call to offer follow up support. There was no happy ending. There was no resurrection.The story will go on from there, but my role in it was over. At lease I thought it was until today when I read Terry’s blog and realized that part of my vocation is to claim the resurrection for those who can’t see it on the horizon of their own tragedy.
So for all those people whom I’ve sat with through tears and pain, terror and shock, I raise that cry of defiance in a world where I don’t get to see the end of their story. I utter that insolent and rebellious shriek against the forces of evil that take away the love in this world and have left their families destitute and shredded in the wake of that which they cannot control. I claim the resurrection that I won’t get to see for them. And for myself. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!