Easter Thoughts

“My beloved responded and said to me,
‘Arise, my darling, my beautiful one,
And come along.

‘For behold, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone.

‘The flowers have already appeared in the land;
The time has arrived for pruning the vines,
And the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land.

‘The fig tree has ripened its figs,
And the vines in blossom have given forth their fragrance.
Arise, my darling, my beautiful one,
And come along!’”

Song of Solomon 2:10-13

I love Holy Week. I think I really began to enjoy its annual occurrence about four years ago. I remember it was Easter Sunday and I was scheduled to work the morning shift of my desk job at the tennis club where my husband is a teaching pro. Being a holiday, there weren't many people coming in, so I was alone for most of my 6.5 hour shift. It was the first time I'd ever skipped church on an Easter and I thought I'd be a little sad to miss out on the festivities with my fellow brethren. But as the sunlight poured through the pro shop windows and I sat in complete silence perched on my stool, I became incredibly aware of something…or Someone in attendance with me. Grace. This Jesus…this resurrected Lord was surrounding me, embracing me in the Beloved. I almost didn't want to move because I was afraid that the slightest breath would distract me from the consciousness of that moment. Everything around me seemed alive. The distinct smell of tennis balls was something more than an ordinary day at work. It was the fragrance of life somehow. When I finally dared to move, I went up on the balcony overlooking the empty courts and I stretched out my arms and in a voice just above a whisper I declared, "Jesus is here." Something about the silence was so full and so breath-taking. Nothing in me had the ability to interpret what was happening, all I could do was know that it was happening.

At the time, I was reading something by C. S. Lewis. I can't remember for certain, but I think it was "The Great Divorce." The subject on my mind was to do with the intermingling of time and eternity. I've always felt such an interesting connection with Clive (Jack) Staples Lewis. I don't even always like or agree with or understand what he writes, but in my imagination he is a sort of Grandfather to me, or maybe a Great Uncle. His thoughts have the ability to draw me in and take me on a journey that pulls me outside of my normal realm of thinking and invites me to question the unquestionable and to explore this existence as a plain of infinite possibilities.

That morning, after preaching to my congregation of tennis courts, I returned to the desk and looked at the picture of C. S. Lewis that was on the back of the book. I've studied his face hundreds of times, but this particular time, my eyes filled with tears and I kissed the small, square, black and white photograph. Something in that book that he had written decades before I was even born had led me into a moment of sheer presence. It was presence with my Creator, with the resurrected Christ in me, with Uncle Jack and with…tennis balls. As Robert Capon would say, it was a surprise "beyond all liking and happening."

The feeling and intensity of that morning faded, but the faith that was birthed, or perhaps resurrected, remains a constant companion even when I forget that it's there. And it has taught me to stay awake, stay sober in the reality of here and now because that is the only place where this surprising gift of fuller presence finds us and knocks us down with its hugs and kisses and assurances of love. Faith surely isn't a feeling or an intellectual certainty, but is much more a knowing; a knowing that includes doubt as well as the very real substance of pure eternity that resides in every human heart.

Since then, Holy week has intrigued me. Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Resurrection Sunday…the events that we remember on these days are so beyond our ability to comprehend. They burst with truth and reality and they are surely worth meditating upon throughout all of the 51 other Holy Weeks throughout the year. But as a creature caught in time, I like the anticipation and build up surrounding this week and the way that nature celebrates it with us in the newness of the Spring season. 

My favorite verses for Easter are the ones from Song of Solomon that I posted at the top. They reveal the mystical romance that is present in the cross and resurrection. In death and in suffering, in rejection and in confusion, our great Lover joined us in a holy matrimony of violent flesh with forgiving God and the silence of the grave became, not the end of our story, but the bedchamber from which new life could be conceived. And now, when all hope seems lost from our perspective; when suffering seems to be our defeat or when we think we've committed an unforgivable atrocity and the darkness of the tomb closes in, suddenly a melody comes out of nowhere to awaken something new! Arise, my darling! Or as John Mark McMillan beautifully puts it: affliction is eclipsed by glory. 

The grave has become the very place of life. Who can understand this? I sure don't. But I hear it. And moment by moment I know that this unfathomable Lover is transforming His Beloved, of which we are all a part.

May the magnitude of these days seduce us out of our fear and into their Truth.