It’s Easter Sunday and there I sit in a pew, in the back row of Springfield’s First Baptist Church. My plan for Easter didn’t include an Easter Sunrise Service but the ad in yesterday’s paper caught my eye.
Earlier this morning, my eye’s opened to see the red numbers 6:45 staring at me from my alarm clock. As I lie there asking the usual questions of God, I hear Him whisper: “ go to church.”
To some of you “go to church” is a sentence you hear God say to you often. But He hasn’t said those words to me in a long time. Several years ago, we were called into a new season with God that did not include going to what we are, the church. (A building) So, finding myself with a bulletin in my hand, quietly waiting for the service to start, felt awkward at best.
On this morning, a cross, draped in white cloth, its base surrounded with Easter Lilly’s, is more than decoration. It’s symbolic of everything I cling to. On this morning I’m drawn to it more than usual.
As songs find their way from my head, to my heart, air passing over my larynx and finally resting in my ears, memories flood my mind, releasing themselves as tears. A ten-year-old boy, buried deep inside reminds me of the times we celebrated Easter at the Stollers house when we were young. He remembers his mother singing “He Arose” while accompanying herself on the piano in the living room on 24th street.
Back in the pew in Springfield, the pastor talks of transitions. She points out how we as followers of Christ tend to focus more on the Last Supper and even more on the Risen Savior. We try to avoid the death process it takes to get there. No one wants to die on a cross.
In her words I hear myself. Life is not easy right now. The journey for freedom is littered with land mines and large rocks designed to trip the traveler and cause you to fall. When navigating rough waters becomes too difficult, I too find myself wishing for this part to be over. I want to climb down off the cross and get to Easter Dinner.
God is often easiest to see in the darkest place but you have to take time to look, rather than wait for the light to come on. There is no short cut to a life of faith. There is no easy way to get to Easter Sunday. God, show me how to live in the process and not try to hold my breath, waiting for a happy ending.
