Easter is a Season (Not a Day)
Written by Kiely Todd Roska
This Easter, it felt nearly sacrilegious to celebrate resurrection while so much dying is happening all around us. Even with vaccination rates rising, we continue to lose people daily to COVID-19. As I write, 2,996,305 people have died from this disease, 562,296 of them in the United States. Losing that many people is difficult to comprehend, and even more difficult to honor properly. I lost my mother-in-law and my step-brother this year, and like many others, we have not yet gathered for a funeral to honor their lives. My grief feels suspended, like the grief itself still lives in quarantine. In addition to losing people in the pandemic, we are confronted with violence and death on a daily basis. In Minnesota, Holy Week marked the beginning of Derek Chauvin’s trial. Daunte Wright was just killed by a police offer this week. Just a few weeks ago, there were mass shootings in Georgia and Colorado. It's almost impossible to adequately absorb and respond to one death before we learn that someone else has died. None of this inspires a hallelujah.
LOSS COMES IN MANY FORMS
In addition to physical death, many people have experienced a loss of roles and responsibilities as we have faced a slowing down and a cooping up. Others have experienced a lost sense of safety as they worked without enough protective measures or as they worked overtime with very little rest. Some, especially elders, lost forms of connection, leaving them lonely and scared. The most vulnerable among us are having difficulty putting food on the table or worried about how to pay for healthcare. Those living in crowded quarters, those who are incarcerated, and those experiencing violence or tension at home were already vulnerable. They lost an already slim margin of security.
To one degree or another, we all experienced “death” in some aspects of our lives. Many relationships are strained. Our work life is different. Many of us have lost our jobs or are worried about our jobs. Our plans, ceremonies, and “nonessential" healthcare were delayed or cancelled.
Some days, it seems almost impossible to engage a spirit of Resurrection when we are surrounded by so much loss. In many ways, Easter feels like the wrong holiday at the wrong time. How do we celebrate Easter when we are still grieving, still repenting, still mourning? After two Easters in quarantine of some kind, many of us are still slogging through Lent emotionally.
While it has felt more pronounced this year, I often find myself personally or emotionally in a different space than particular holy days are trying to engage. I experienced this most profoundly for the six Advent seasons during the six years I struggled with infertility. As someone who longed to become a parent, the pregnancy and birth metaphors were difficult (and even painful) to engage. Although Christmas came each of those years, I was somehow stuck in an emotional Advent. During those years of infertility, I felt like I never really moved out of the season of waiting. Even so, there was something important about the practice of reaching Christmas. God wanted to be born into the world in a new way, whether I was prepared for it or not. Different holidays invite us into different aspects of what it means to be human—even if we are not quite ready for a specific sentiment when it arrives on the calendar.
INVITATIONS OF EASTER SEASON
The Easter Season invites us to remember that resurrection takes time; it doesn’t happen immediately. After all, Jesus did not rise immediately after his death. It took a few days. Especially in John's gospel, Jesus' resurrection appearances happen over the course of several days. Culturally, most American Christians miss the power of this lesson. When we celebrate Easter as only one single day, we are attempting to cram all the power of resurrection into too short a span of time. Easter is a season of 50 days because resurrection is complex; it takes a while to live into and to comprehend. One day does not teach us all we need to know.
Easter this year is also reminding us that resurrection doesn't undo the death; it transforms it. My mother-in-law and my step brother (blessed be their memory) are really gone. The millions (millions!) of people who lost their lives to COVID-19 are not coming back. Daunte Wright and George Floyd (blessed be their memory) are dead. The challenge for those of us who are living is to not just be spectators to the death, but to be witnesses. Witnesses are called to testify. In the last year, we have seen death up close in ways we have not seen before. Individually and collectively, we are being called to go and tell what we have seen and to find our way into new life--ways of life that truly honor those who have died. To practice compassion. To seek justice.
Easter 2021 has another invitation for us—that resurrection comes whether we are ready or not. We do not have to be experiencing a particular emotional state in order to witness new life emerging. Learning from the experience of the first disciples, resurrection comes even while we are still grieving, while we are unprepared, while our emotional states are all over the place.
RESURRECTION IS A VERB (NOT ONLY A NOUN)
The reason why it is so easy to miss these invitations is that we usually think of resurrection as a noun, as an event pertaining only to Jesus. I have found it helpful to think of resurrection as a verb: a process, an energy, a perpetual push toward new life. God is a God of Resurrection—a God who never accepts death of any kind as the last word. Jesus’ Resurrection was God’s strongest statement of this truth, but God’s resurrecting energy lives on eternally. This Easter season, once again, I am trying to hold the ambiguity, uncertainty, and discomfort of experiencing resurrection as a verb. I am processing the grief of losing loved ones during this time, the grief of witnessing others lose so much, and I am experiencing anticipatory grief for much that is yet to come. At the same time, I am striving to be a witness to a Resurrection process that I do not fully understand and am having a hard time feeling right now.
But, Resurrection is stubborn and steadfast. It comes again and again wherever there is death. Resurrection comes while we are still grieving, while physical distancing guidelines are still in effect. Resurrection comes whether we are personally or communally ready for it. And I am grateful it works that way—completely out of our control. The long and complex Easter season offers this assurance: New life is breaking forth during every moment—whether we are ready to receive it or not. New life is breaking forth whether we even recognize it or not. That great and persistent mystery takes time to absorb. The good news: Easter season is not yet over. We still have the rest of this Easter season to practice . . . and every Easter season yet to come.
This reflection was originally published in a different form on the Benedictine Center blog: benedictinecenter.org