Easter in 2020: Easter in Exile

This Easter is special in many ways...a special sounding year, that was supposed to have a different meaning, that was supposed to mean something different for Christians around the globe. Instead, we are all staying home, afraid of what is to come, both in the world and afraid for our own mortality because of an invisible enemy, that we do not understand, and cannot really fight.We are in exile from the world we used to have, mere months ago.

In the same way, Jesus' resurrection and the Easter story is one of fear, confinement, confusion and sadness. The disciples were expecting a messiah, someone who was a political hero in Jewish history, in human history, to rewrite the story that Roman culture had created. Instead, his best friends, watched him punished and killed in one of the most shameful ways, tortured, mobbed, and finally crucified. Not exactly the way any of us would wish to die.

After Jesus died, his followers were a target. They were locked away in small rooms, hiding from the authorities...and it was a miracle that saved them, not any political act. From Acts of the Apostles:

¹⁹ On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
²¹ Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” ²² And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³

Until they received grace and gifts from God, there was nothing they could do. Everything after that moment, however, was like reading a book about super heroes. They could speak in all languages, they healed the sick in God's name, they did many good deeds and were not afraid.

This is not to say that they lived the way that super heroes lived. Many early Christians were crucified, beaten to death, stoned to death, died for others. Regardless of what some people might say, Christianity is not triumphalism, it is not a triumph of goodness over bad people, bad things, bad moments, over tragedy.  Christianity only outlines in a stronger relief that what already exists.

Jesus changed our relationship with God...he was not here to make the world a perfect better place, but to change our relationship with the world. We are no longer bound by the Old Testament, but we are bound and freed by a new sense of baptism, indeed a baptism of fire, to recognize the good that is in the world, to make anew that which already exists. We recognize the importance of the ten commandments, but they cannot replace the beatitudes. Rules still exist, but first love.  Sin is still present, but first grace.  In Easter, in this pandemic world, is a reorientation to that which exists.

Jesus is for Christians, the bridge across to a new kind of relationship with the divine, and within such, as a great priest once said, we are called brothers and sisters in Christ now, and not just followers. Jesus' resurrection is a sacrifice that brings us into a new relationship with God.

Christians are losers first, and we follow someone who lost everything in an act that is hard to understand. And not through the fire of revolution, but through the fire of the Holy Spirit.  Even if we have a vaccine, we cannot bring back those we have lost. Let us pray for those still here, for those who have gone before us, for those trying to bring peace to our world in their own way.