On Easter morning I got up early enough to read and drink coffee before driving half an hour to a sunrise service where I was assisting the pastor. I read the Easter morning empty tomb stories and lingered over the surprise and astonishment of the disciples who didn’t know what else to do besides repeat this strange story. Evidently, they kept telling it and then, eventually, they wrote it down in order to continue telling it. And here I was, hearing it told again.
I know this is obvious, but there is no way those first disciples could have known I’d be reading the stories they helped to tell. It seems obvious to me, now, how powerful the telling is. How profound an act to witness to the truth. But on Easter morning drinking my coffee and reading scripture, I kept thinking about how small and ordinary it must have seemed at the time, shocked and hopeful friends telling one another stories.
The disciples didn’t need to have a 2000-year plan, resulting in my reading the gospels on Easter morning. They only needed to do what was given them to do: tell the story.
That’s where I can get hung up. Sometimes it is resoundingly clear what direction to take. There is no question about what is mine to do. And then there are the other times. Like now, when I brace myself for the daily news, when what we have counted on seems flimsy and vulnerable, when I feel overwhelmed by the vast need for resistance and change and the transforming power of love. In the face of demise and destruction and deceit, I feel paralyzed, seeing way too many things in need of attention and not at all certain what is mine to do.
The unfaithful truth is that I am not sure my small actions will amount to anything. Is anything enough right now?is the question I bang my head against.
And then, I worry about whether the church is doing what is ours to do.
At the country church on Easter morning, the kids proclaimed the Good News and then attached lettered sheets of paper to the cross, vertically and horizontally, to spell out “HE IS ALIVE.” Towards the end of worship, I saw that several of the letters had fallen off the cross and what was left read, “HE IS AL.” At which point, Paul Simon started singing in my head and I saw scenes from the video with Chevy Chase. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing during worship, but I did nab this picture afterwards since I wasn’t sure anyone would believe me or that the description would do it justice.
“And, Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al…”
The second worship service I participated in that morning, at another church, involved the choir processing in with the cross held high, singing “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today.” As my gaze landed on one of the tenors, belting it out with his whole body, my throat caught and tears came to my eyes. Moments after this song ended, I was the pastor leading the opening prayer, a little worried my composure wasn’t rock solid. As I projected to the packed church, literally saying the words “This is the Good News,” the man in the third row was yawning without bothering to cover his mouth, and so broadly that it involved his entire face. Within a span of 2 minutes, the full-throated, earth-shattering joy of Easter and we humans yawning in the face of it.
Pastors experience a certain pressure on Easter morning. Many churches are packed more fully than usual Sundays. There are visitors and maybe non-believers in the pews. Now’s our chance to wow them!I find myself wanting things to be polished, so it looks like we know what we are doing. And I struggle with the tension between a polished presentation and the everyday incarnate reality of a simple sprawling yawn or tape that doesn’t stay stuck.
On Easter evening, I attended my third worship service of the day. I wasn’t the pastor, just one of many who watched the live broadcast of Jesus Christ Superstar. There is definitely no way the first disciples could have predicted their telling of the story would reverberate and morph into a rock musical. It’s not the whole story, but it powerfully breaks open tired language and misunderstood characters to make them fresh and current. I had the TV turned up too loud, singing along, the way we are meant to sing hymns.
The thing about stories is, if they’re good everyone wants to tell them. Those first disciples were wise and faithful enough to recognize a good story (though some of the men had to second-guess the women’s telling first). They kept telling it to whoever would listen, wherever they went.
Everything seems like a too-small act to me right now. Then again, small acts are how we grab hold of the big truths. When the women ran from the tomb with Good News, the story sounded like this: “The stone is gone. The tomb is empty.” I don’t know how to love him, either. But I keep trying. Here’s my small act for today.
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Photo © Rachel Chen, used with permission.