A Note on Easter Amid COVID-19

Rev. Elizabeth Henry

by Rev. Elizabeth Henry

 

There are a lot of articles and sound bites floating around about Easter— whether it’s cancelled, whether churches should just show up and return to worship as usual that day regardless of public health officials’ pleas— but they all seem to be missing the point of what Easter actually is in the Christian faith. It’s not a holiday or a date. It’s the annual reminder that God has and does and will continue to defy every oppressive system and subvert every unhealthy expectation we hold about who God is and who God loves in order to show us that we are ALL beloved and worthy of unthinkable love, no exceptions.

So I don’t care what anybody says, you cannot rush the resurrection and you cannot force God into a calendar, even a church calendar. It’s just not God’s style to stay in our little boxes like that.

If we are truly Easter people, we’re going to have to do the painful, crappy work of sitting in the fear and unknown all through Friday & Saturday.‬ ‪We’re going to have to wonder with the disciples if everything we hoped for is really over. We’re going to have to wonder if we can possibly go back to how things were before… and if we’d want to even if we could. ‬ ‪We’re going to have to accept that we do not know when or how God’s Spirit will move next, only that She will. We’re going to have to settle in alongside the disciples stuck inside in small groups together, scattered apart from the whole body, afraid to wade out into the crowds outside until things calm down.‬ ‪

If we want to truly celebrate what our God has done and is doing at Easter, we have to let go of our schedules and stay with the women at the foot of the cross until the very last breath, however damn long it takes. We cannot skip this part, because as much as we hate it, there is no resurrection without death.‬ Easter is coming in God’s own time. Our calling is not to force it into being prematurely but to wait in faith, loving one another through the grief, trusting that even in the dark night God is doing a new thing.

Rev. Elizabeth Henry directs the Thriving in Ministry program at Millsaps College to support clergywomen across the southern United States.