The Savior by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1900
The knowledge of the fallen world does not kill joy, which emanates in this world, always, constantly, as a bright sorrow.
- Alexander Schmemann
The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann
How is your Lent coming? I had plans. Things I was going to give up (M&M’s). Things I was going to take on (prayer, reading, writing, visiting). And then March happened. We lost our beloved Moses. The coronavirus took over our lives. Lent got pushed aside—an extraneous set of resolutions that did not measure up to the urgency of the crises every day seemed to bring.
And now, we are entering into Holy Week and I am wondering what happened. Will it even feel like Easter since we still cannot gather? Will even Christ’s resurrection be trumped by this virus? Like the NBA, like the Olympics, should we just postpone Easter until we can really celebrate it with a packed sanctuary and trumpets and a coffee hour?!?
I feel like this Lent the stories of loss and grief and pandemic and “distancing” have overtaken my life. And now it’s Holy Week with its story of Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and (Hallelujah!) Easter Sunday and there is some One saying to us, “Ahem! There is another story. A bigger story that I think you need to hear and to remember.”
This Lent the Holy Spirit gave me the quote above from Father Schmemann. This Lent I have been immersed in the knowledge of our fallen world. I have been focused on it. Obsessed with it. And after hours and hours of study, I can confidently say to you, “Our world is messed up!”
But our knowledge of this truth does not kill joy. The cross does not kill joy. Good Friday is Good because it doesn’t kill joy. Easter comes. God’s joy and God’s life cannot be killed. It “emanates in this world, always, constantly.”
As we enter into this Holy Week which is smack in the middle of this coronavirus crisis, may we be reminded of the Bigger Story. May we be reminded of God’s joy and hope that cannot be killed. Let us weep on Friday, knowing this “bright sorrow.” Let us laugh on Sunday, knowing this “bright sorrow.” Let us laugh with the apostle Paul, calling out Death and Sin,
“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:54-57
Paraphrasing Paul from another chapter (13) in 1 Corinthians, “Beloved, now we see [one another] dimly, as [on a screen] but one day we will see [one another] face to face.” And when we do we will remind one another, “He is Risen!” “He is Risen, indeed!” And with bright sorrow we will sing, “Hallelujah!...” Until that day…
Thanks,
David