Preventing Grace
It isn’t even the early dawn. The sun has been up for a while and I have lugged myself out of my warm comfortable bed in order to hide Easter baskets. Last year—I’m pretty sure it was last year—I gently assisted the stupid Easter bunny into his metaphorical grave and let my children know (can’t remember how) that the person who left them big buckets of chocolates and little presents on this great feast was actually their mother. They experienced no grief, to my astonishment, because it turns out that I, as I am daily discovering, am a person who can be controlled—manipulated if you will—whereas no one even knew how to get in touch with the Easter bunny.
“You should hide the baskets,” explained one child. “That would be better.”
And then, because everyone is slightly older, “Don’t worry about doing it before church. Just do it when you get home.”
Leaving aside the obnoxiousness of being told what to do by your own children, this year it was vouchsafed to me that I didn’t need to wait till after church, because church is on the couch. I could do it “anytime now.” Actually, the child in question was “just wondering,” “when I was thinking about doing it.” Hashtag Magic of Childhood.
Anyway, what I wanted to say was that, of all the unforeseen consequences of the Age of Coronavirus, the one where I never have to wake up at 4:30 in the morning is the absolute best. I’ve read three prophesying posts about what life will be like in the new age, the new time when we can all finally leave our houses again, and no one has mentioned this important point, nor much about how the church will go on (maybe I’m reading the wrong news sites).
“Back in my day,” said one kid last night, as we were lighting out home candles for a home “vigil,” or “visual,” as one child persists in calling it, “we used to go to a church building for Easter services.” My children are all winning at the sarcasm right now.
Back in Jesus’ day, you had to go all the way out of the city to the tomb to find your surprise, and it was a little bit more stressful because in no way, in a thousand years, were you expecting it. You went thinking it was the end of everything, and when you got there, your whole world was restored.
I think that’s what a lot of us would like when we finally get to come out of our houses, back into the world. It might feel like a tomb, right now, especially if you are unhappy with yourself or your family or any of the things that make life so stressful (like not enough money and too much death). I’ve already started saying things like, “When I can finally go to _____, I’m going to _____.” I’m already tasting whatever is in those two blanks, sure of some certain profound pleasure that is beyond me now.
But according to all the posts I’ve been reading life will never be the same. Everything is going to change. The way we do business—obviously—the way we use money—of course—the way we think about our own communities and the world. We won’t be able to go back to the same kind of life we had before, so sayeth the prophets. And I am inclined to agree with them. I am not going to wake up before 6 ever again if I can help it. The main thing I’ve learned is that I’m not that important and nothing I do is that important. Might as well sleep until 6.
But I am curious about the idea that coronavirus will really “change everything,” that “nothing will ever be the same again.” I don’t really think that is true for those of us who this morning are not going out of our houses to church, who, upon waking, are firing up one kind of technology or another in order to “connect” with the Body of Christ. We have already had our transformation, the overturning of the order of our lives. It happened two thousand or so years ago as the sun rose and our Lord stepped out of his dark tomb and into the bright, cheerful, Sunday morning light.
Of course, the way we do business will change, and a lot of us will be a lot poorer. But, if you have already counted nothing greater than the surpassing joy of knowing Christ, have already, in one way or another, stood outside his empty tomb in complete astonishment, have lost yourself and then, with relief and joy, been found by him—you are already living in a new, strange, bright world. Your grief is already altered by a joy that even being separated in the body from those you love cannot diminish or destroy.
Oh sure, I am going to cry this morning, a lot. But not with despair, not with the hopelessness of seeing a future I don’t recognize or can’t control. Because Jesus is Risen. And he will go on being risen no matter what happens tomorrow or the next day. And after a very little while, he will come again, and I won’t have to gaze at him through this screen, darkly, but will behold him face to face. Getting to go to church again will just be a little practice for that glorious moment. Until then, see you online!
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