Confusion and the Easter Experience

The sacred story is familiar to us:

Early in the morning on the first day of the week, the women went to the place where they had laid him.  They found the stone rolled away.  Looking inside, they found the clothes with which they wrapped his body now folded and set aside.  The tomb was empty.  His body was gone. They wondered what this could mean.

After describing the empty tomb, each of the gospel writers convey different aspects of the sacred story.  At its heart, the story of the Resurrection of Jesus is a story about women who found the empty tomb.  They were surely stunned and confused. Did someone steal their companion’s body?  What could have happened?

Much like that first Easter, our marking of Easter is confusing this year.  It’s not a day characterized by our usual Easter events: church services with grand music, Easter egg hunts for children, dinners with family and loved ones, showing off new clothes, and other traditions that bring family, friends, and communities together.  Instead, secluded in our homes, we ponder what this Easter may mean for us.  We may be stunned that the world has come to such a dramatic halt.  We are surely confused about where we will all go from here.  Will we return to life as we knew it?  Will our lives be permanently changed? How long will we need to shelter at home?

Our usual Easter traditions from generations past have drawn us away from the experience of that first Easter that was startling and confusing. We have been accustomed to associating Easter with a sense of confidence and high energy.  But that’s not how it all began.  Initially, the women who first went to the tomb, then the men who followed them, were in shock.  Some of them had witnessed the brutality of the crucifixion.  It surely was a traumatic experience.  And now? What did this empty tomb mean?  What was happening?  How could anyone make sense of it?

Two millennia later, the sacred stories of Easter are familiar to us.  Because of that, we skip over the confusion of the early morning experience of the empty tomb and move right to the Alleluias and joyous proclamations.  We no longer look at the resurrection of the Christ with confusion.

Perhaps this year, we can allow ourselves to be confused about Easter, as were the companions and followers of Jesus.  As I write, I look out the window in front of me and see signs of life:  budding flowers, birds building nests, and squirrels scampering about.  But there are things missing:  no cars, no people, no signs of human life.  There’s something that’s both beautiful and eerie.  Living a secluded life marked by keeping physical distance from others doesn’t seem like a celebration of life.  Instead, it seems as though life is on hold.  It’s an unnatural pause.

The women experienced an unnatural pause.  Their friend was executed and buried. They returned to complete the funeral rites.  But the expected customs involved with tending the body of a loved one were interrupted.  What happened?  It’s in that interruption that the possibility of new life emerged.

I don’t have a final insight to conclude this reflection.  That’s because we are living in this mystery together.  We don’t know where this unnatural and confusing pause in our day to day lives will lead us.  But I do know this:  understanding the mystery of the Resurrection of Christ begins with the kind of confusion experienced by the women.  It is out of that confusion that we come to understand something of resurrected life. My faith in the resurrection, a mystery in which we all share, is quite simple:  that life is changed, not ended.  So it is with us: our lives are changed, but not ended. In these confusing changes in life, we are invited to consider that the resurrected life of the Christ is here and now.  Yes, even when sheltering at home, we are invited to experience new life.

Happy Easter!

Photo source: pexels.com David Underland