Dear People of St. John’s,    

     Willa Cather, in her book, Obscure Destinies, says this about a grandmother:  “Sometimes in the morning, if her feet ached more than usual, Mrs. Harris felt a little low.  (Nobody did anything about broken arches in those days, and the common endurance test of old age was to keep going after every step cost something).  She would hang up her towel with a sigh and go into the kitchen, feeling that it was hard to make a start.  But the moment she heard the children running down the uncarpeted back stairs, she forgot to be low.  Indeed, she ceased to be an individual, an old woman with aching feet; she became a part of a group, became a relationship.  She was drunk up into their freshness when they burst in upon her, telling her about their dreams, explaining their troubles with buttons and shoelaces and underwear shrunk too small.  The tired, solitary old woman grandmother had been at daybreak vanished.  Suddenly the morning seemed as important to her as it did to the children, and the morning ahead stretched out sunshiny, important.”

     Easter breaks in upon us with news that moves us from being a solitary individual dealing with issues of death.  The report from the women, who trudged mournfully to the tomb that first dawn of a New Day, causes a gasp of awe and wonder.  “Don’t be afraid; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He had been raised; he is not here.”  Suddenly, the morning seems important!  Simply put, from that day forward God in Christ is not to be found in a tomb; and I doubt that bones found in an ossuary in Jerusalem can, with scientific certainty, be said to be the bones of Jesus the Christ.  They may well be the remains of a Jesus, but not the Jesus.

     Sometimes it is our duty to walk solemnly to graves and every step seems to cost us something.  We have faced death in our community of faith this year; we have dealt with the untimely deaths of young people in our family.  We would just as soon not have to deal with death, but we can if we remember that something has happened with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and that new reality makes us a part of a group.  This is community news and must be heard in community.  We can’t hear this news alone, because we were not created to hear it alone.  This news makes us a relationship; with each other and with God.  It can’t be lived any other way.

     All of us have those days when our feet hurt, our hearts ache, and the feeling of being utterly alone washes over us.  It is at such times that we remember we have a new reality called the church.  We have each other.  That is one of the gifts of Easter.  You and I need never be alone again.  God has blessed us with mercy and grace and the living presence of the Risen Lord.  It is that profound truth that can make every morning stretch out with the potential for sunshine and new life.  God bless each one of you and a Happy, Joyous Easter to you.

                                                                      Peace, 

                                                                                                                                                                                       Tom