Thoughts On Easter

I’ve been sitting in this coffee shop for almost an hour and a half. Staring at my screen. I’m supposed to be writing. This is my weekly chance for 3 hours uninterrupted to create with words. I’ve finally opened a whole new window on my computer to stop distractions of the tabs I have open. Because Google. And Amazon. And my blog reading I’m behind on.

Oh.  Bret’s bday.  Hmmm.  What should I get him?

Oh.  My trip in a couple weeks.  I would love a new white v-neck.  Hmmm. Maybe Everlane?

Oh.  I was going to write about my bean soup from the leftovers of the Honeybaked Ham Copycat Recipe I posted.  I should do a bit of research to jog my memory.

Oh.  I’m out of eye cream.  And almost facewash.  Maybe Paula’s Choice, this time?

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. My brain wants to do anything but write. It’s like a jack russell terrier on uppers.  I.Can’t.Stop. That’s what happens when I go too long without exercising those muscles. They atrophy. I want to think deeply, but for some reason, my mind and heart just can’t get there.  

And it’s even Easter.  I blog about faith and I’m struggling to come up with something for Easter weekend.  I’m pretty sure there is a rule on that one somewhere. 

The truth is, Easter HAS actually been on my mind. Maybe more so than normal. The last two years have been…something. Hard and painful and scary and new and a lot more of hard. I would say some of the greatest victories and defeats of my spiritual and physical life have happened in this season. And I’m pretty tired.

Are you tired?

Do you feel the weariness that sets in your bones some days?  The defeat of it?

I’ve been there a bit. Life has been heavy for many of the people I know and love. Deep pain in close relationships. Friends passing away. Marriages struggling. Kids struggling. Infertility. Crushing financial burdens. Cancer. Broken bodies and hearts. Fear.

There is enough heartache to go around, and I’m gonna bet many of you feel that.  

So yes. It feels like Easter to me today. These pains and groanings that point to our desperate need and WANT for rescue. The want to be free of my stuff and selfishness and sin and hurt. For a place and a life that is just better. There is this hard to place longing in us. Elyse Fitzpatrick, in Home, characterizes it so beautifully.  We are homesick. 

Honestly, I would imagine that most of us actually don’t want the sun and the moon…we just want it to quit being so overcast all the time.   

Yet.  

The beautiful part is that we have been given the sun and the moon. And more. This place that we are in…this holy Saturday of waiting. It’s easy to forget where we are going. Or why we are here. Or what He has REALLY done.

He beat it.  

He beat all of it.

The death and dying, and pain, and divorce, and cancer, and sin, and selfishness. Through his death, he put all of those in the grave.  Do you get that?  Do you believe that? 

Because if you believe that, you have to believe this. We have a future of forever, without any of those things. When I was younger the idea of heaven seemed so mythical. Far away and maybe not that much fun. Except as a Christian, I couldn’t say that out loud. But as I age (so gracefully, I’m sure), I feel like I am clinging to it and the promise of it, like an oxygen hose. This place I’ve never been but somehow miss all at the same time.

The truth is, these things…this life at times, doesn’t seem endurable without it. Without a promised place of freedom. Without full and total redemption. Without everything being made right, how can we bear it? Seriously? I’m not sure if I could.  

Easter is about many, many things. It’s about an unfathomable sacrifice, a painful life and death, scourging and blood. And it’s about redemption. And freedom and beauty in ashes. Grace poured on top of grace. It’s all about power over sin and fulfilled promises and future glory. And thank goodness, the hope we get to have NOW, because of what happened then.

So yes.  I’m thinking about Easter.  And I’m feeling a little homesick and longing for the promise that Jesus’ death has guaranteed.  

He is risen indeed.