The Work of Easter

Happy Eastertide friends of LaSalle! 

Last Sunday was a wonderful day of celebrating with so many of you - 277 of you to be exact!  (Which includes 27 kids and youth - which might be my favorite number of all.) Thank you to all who attended, ushered, greeted, helped set up, sang, played, read, invited others, made banners, prepared food, cleaned, set up the cross, taught kids, prayed, welcomed, stayed for the party, bought flowers, packed baskets and hid eggs, held babies, made coffee, printed bulletins, gave generously, invited others, and showed up to celebrate the resurrection together! It takes a huge community to celebrate with such joy, energy, diversity, and strength, and I am beyond grateful for it all.   

How now do we live in a world where a resurrection has occurred? How does celebrating life over death, hope over despair, the empty tomb over the grave, change our day to day? With threats to Iran in the news, ongoing anxiety and daily concerns, work and alarms and deadlines - how are we ourselves "Eastered? 

For the next 50 days we celebrate the liturgical season of Eastertide, which culminates in remembering the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. As we walk forward, we aren't just remembering the first Easter of the past, we're trying to live as resurrected spirits, as alive in Christ people - now! Which I know, and feel myself, can be difficult. As I shared on Sunday, we need one another to stay the course and keep on the road ahead - checking in with each other, offering encouragement and tangible support, speaking hope into hard places, and knowing that we are not alone. This is a great season to check in on an old friend, or take the risk of getting coffee with a new friend. It is a great season to remind one another we can come alongside each other in grief - knowing it is being transformed, again and again, because of the cross. It is also a great season to celebrate and find places of joy and wonder with each other - knowing that the discipline of hope interrupts despair, over and over again, because of the empty tomb. Perhaps our longing this Eastertide is as theologian Walter Bruggemann cries, "Easter Us!"     

Beloved wider community of LaSalle - may you sense the encouragement of Easter empowering you to stay the course, and take one step in front of the other on this journey of faith in this season ahead.  May you know you are not alone - and feel you can reach out to others for support, and to offer it. And may we each hold onto the truth that we are all of us, being Eastered, being transformed and brought to life, again and again and again, each day. Read Bruggemann's full poem, "Easter Us" - below:

Easter Us

By Walter Brueggemann

You God who terrified the waters,

who crashed your thunder,
who shook the earth,
and scared the wits out of chaos.

You God with strong arm saved your people

by miracle and wonder and majestic act. 

You are the same God to whom we turn,

we turn in our days of trouble
and in our weary nights;
we look for steadfast love and are dismayed,
we wait for your promises, but wait in fatigue,
we ponder your forgetfulness and lack of compassion, 
and we grow silent.

Our lives, addressed to you,

have this bitter-sweet taste of
loud-crashing miracles and weak-kneed doubt. 
So we come in our bewilderment and wonderment,
deeply trusting, almost afraid to trust much,
passionately insisting, too timid to insist much,
fervently hoping, exhausted for hoping too much. 

Look upon us in our deep need,

mark the wounds of our brothers and sisters just here,
notice the turmoil in our lives, and the lives of our families,
credit the incongruity of the rich and the poor in our very city,
and the staggering injustices abroad in our land,
tend to the rage out of control, rage justified by displacement,
rage gone crazy by absence, silence, and deprivation,

measure the suffering, 
count the sufferers, 
number the wounds.

You tamer of chaos and mender of all tears in the canvas of creation,

we ponder your suffering, 
your crown of thorns, 
your garment taken in lottery,
your mocked life. 
And now we throw upon your suffering humiliation,
the suffering of the world. 

You defeater of death, whose power could not hold you, 

come in your Easter,
come in your sweeping victory, 
come in your glorious new life. 

Easter us, 

salve wounds, 
break injustice,
bring peace,
guarantee neighbor.

Easter us in joy and strength. 
Be our God, be your true self, lord of life,

massively turn our life toward your life
and away from anti-neighbor, anti-deathliness.

Hear our thankful, grateful, unashamed Hallelujah!
Amen.