What do we do when Easter has come, but Lent seems to have continued?

That is the question I hear the world asking, even though they may not know it. There is a grief in this time that is true and real, and there are fears we all face. This is a time to admit that we are frail, weak, anxious, or disappointed. This is a time to wake up to how much of our self-worth and sense of direction we place on having things to do, being useful, making plans.

And yet. The truth is we have always lived with no guarantee of tomorrow. And so we must learn what it means to live in this bright, glad world anyways. This is what I hope we can all learn to talk about: what this life is and can be. How we live this flesh-and-bones life, hidden with Christ in God, full of the joy of life that does not shy away from death. For the message of Easter is that wherever we walk, through life or death, Christ is waiting for us there.

There is so much joy in knowing that He is here, close as our very breath, calling us deeper into His life and the inexhaustible riches of His love. Eternal life is to know Him, and in knowing Him, love Him – and we can know Him here, in this place, in a new and greater way. This is a call to an embodied life that doesn’t just wait for “someday,” but accepts the presence of Christ in our midst, here and now, in these very rooms and relationships and realities.

“It is only when in the darkness of this world we discern that Christ has already ‘filled all things with himself’ that these things, whatever else they may be, are revealed and given to us full of meaning and beauty. A Christian is the one who, wherever he looks, finds Christ and rejoices in Him.” – Alexander Schmemman

As our lives have seemed to narrow, let our thoughts of God grow grander.

Amen.