So how is everyone doing? Are you working form home? Are you home schooling your kids? I hope that you are all doing well and that you have found enough to keep you busy during what can be very long days of confinement. It can be difficult to deal with these situations especially since we do not know when it is going to end. All the medical folks tell us that if we hope to defeat this, and I believe we will, we need to just stay put, hunker down, and ride it out until it is over.
It can also be daunting to watch the news and try and make sense out of everything that we area hearing, this is closing that is closing school here in Massachusetts will not be closed until at least the first week in May and all the rest. Try and get sometime away from it all if you can. The weather is starting to warm up and we can get outside for a walk or starting the spring cleanup around our yards.
But this time a year our thoughts start to turn toward the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter morning but this year, as of right now anyway that celebration could look much different. As a church leader I have been asking my self what will be do if we cannot all be together in the sanctuary of our beautiful church on Easter? What about Palm Sunday and all the other services that will take place during Holy Week? These are all questions that I will be dealing with in the coming days and weeks.
Missing services on Easter and other times brings a sense of loneliness and perhaps grief, yes grief is a real part of not being able to gather. We all long for the “good old days” of just a few weeks ago when we could all gather together and celebrate birthdays and other such miles stones and not being able to do that now can cause a sense of loss and along with that loss comes grief.
But the upside of all of this is that Jesus does not need to be gathered in a finely decorated building for the resurrection to take place, Jesus has risen from the dead and remains with us when we are together and when we are apart.
I was reminded recently of that first Easter when the apostles and other were gathered in the Upper Room and locked in because of a very real danger to their lives. This happened during the season of Passover when the remembrance of being locked in for fear of another real threat to the lives of people was happening. The Apostles and other were locked in and Jesus came to them anyway. He came to them through the wall and bid them peace.
I know things are going to be different this year and I grieve right along with you but the important thing to remember are those words that Jesus spoke after the resurrection, peace. Jesus brings us peace and although it may not feel like it right now, it is that peace that I hope you are able to find this day and, in the days, ahead.
