“Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain, wheat that in the dark earth many days has lain.” The words of this classic Easter hymn fill us with the hope that springs from Christ’s resurrection. The Joyful Noise choir was going to sing this to us last Easter, but due to the pandemic, we had to cancel the anthem. Or maybe it would be better to say postpone, because we are excited that they will be able to sing these words to us this Easter! Not due to the end of the pandemic, but due to the technological skills our music team has learned since last Easter to bring us virtual choirs. And yet, it is still a sign of hope to sing this song again as we approach the end of the pandemic, a sign of the return to have them sing this anthem.
Easter is a season of hope and that hope is compounded this year as the vaccine becomes more and more widely available. We are closer to the end of the pandemic than the beginning. I was recently in a Zoom meeting with about a dozen people and all but two of us had had at least one shot. There is still a lot of uncertainty about how everything will play out, but there is so much reason to be hopeful in this moment. The pandemic will end. Our year-plus long Lent will finally arrive at its Easter! Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!
On Easter, Christ was raised from the dead, but Christ’s raising is not a simple return to life. Some have noted the distinction between resurrection and resuscitation. He has been transformed, not returned. Mary Magdalene does not initially recognize him and neither do the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. When in the locked room, the other disciples see that Christ still carries the wounds of his crucifixion. He is alive, but life is different. And life will be different for the disciples after the resurrection, utterly transformed by this experience. And our lives will be different at the end of this pandemic. We will return to the church building, but we will not return precisely to the way things were. We will be changed. We do yet know all the ways this is so, but whatever it looks like, we will move forward in the hope of the resurrection.
From Bingham's Rector's Closing Thoughts column in the Easter 2021 Bellringer.
