This Easter Sunday is different.
It is somehow cold, lonely and deadly.
In my day job I work with a team of healthcare educators. We have been busy teaching how to put on and carefully take of PPE. How to fit masks to protect our ‘front line’ staff, we have been involved in debates as to who should wear which PPE, when should we wear PPE. We have been in discussions how to cohort patients, which wards, how to segregate ITU, when do we stop elective surgery, do we have enough body bags, how do you use a body bag. We have been upskilling nurses who haven’t been on the wards for a while, to enable them to undertake direct patient care once again, we have been skilling staff to undertake roles they wouldn’t normally take – finance teams delivering supplies, QI teams portering. Then there’s Gold Command, Silver Command, Bronze Command all working to ensure that our people (both patients and staff) have the care and protection they so deserve. I am very fortunate we work as a team, professionals all together. We have had some amazing people donating gifts, food, drinks, visors, googles, smellies, lots of staff to help makes lives easier. It been a long difficult three or is that four weeks.
My family is on lock down. The hubster working remotely from a week before lock down, his employers seeing the coming storm before others. My 17 year old, permanently resident on the sofa, fingers attached to his laptop. His cool calm demeanour disguising the anxiety of unknown results of exams not taken, University places lay discarded unsure of how this will play out. My other two cherubs are elsewhere. One on University campus the other at the boyfriends, stuck where they were when lockdown was announced. So like thousands of families the world over we chat (and bicker) over whatsap or publically over twitter and fb. Twice I have seen my daughter (both chocolate related) through the glass of the porch doors as gifts exchanged on an empty cold grey driveway. When she moves away I watch as my arms ache to hold her. I wait each day to see photos or the amazing ‘lockdown updates’ from the firstborn, trying to ascertain his mood and/or anxiety levels, and yet I can only helps with words.
So yes this Easter Sunday is different.
Having listened to today’s data another 737 people have died, totalling 10 621. These large numbers don’t include all. Only those tested positive and have died in hospital, not those poor souls in the community, or nursing/care homes.
How to make sense then of Easter Sunday.
The first year in so many not to be in church. not have had services during the week. not to have met, networked, discussed, shared in our faith. Does this mean my faith is less because I need others in which to share?
So this lonely dark cold Easter Sunday I wonder into the front room, slowly open my laptop and don my head phones, listfully looking for the tunes which will lift the spirit. I allow the music to choose it self, to shuffle in it’s own sphere of what should be.
As the Sidewalk Prophets slowly grow in my ears, and penetrate my thoughts, I take a moment to listen
We all start on the outside. The outside looking in. This is where Grace begins
As the words begin to flood my consciousness – come to the table, sit down, be set free, no one is unwelcome here, let mercy draw you near…
The weariness of my being begins to settle, the fog within my brain becomes clearer.
Amazing Grace (Chris Tomlin) fills the air. As the Easter story plays out in front of me, from the texts on screen, I hear … Grace my fears relieved, My chains are gone, My Saviour has ransomed me, Unending Love, Amazing Grace.
This Easter Sunday begins to make some sense. How did Jesus feel in the Garden of Gethsemane, as his friends slept, knowing what He must face? When he was arrested, alone and cold, whipped and made to carry His own cross to His ultimate death on the very same cross. And yet even in this story there is hope, Simeon who carried the cross for Jesus, of the criminal hung on the cross nearby, who asked for Jesus’ forgiveness, of Nickodemus, of many more…Here my Saviour ransomed himself for me, an unending love indeed.
The sweet sounds of Hallelujah (Pentatonix) gives me space to think more clearly, to make more sense of the days gone by, of the actions I have taken, of the interactions I have been part of and how we have moved forward.
Into my thoughts the hymn ‘Here I am Lord, is it I Lord’ permeates to the centre of my being…. almost as if ‘I have heard you calling in the night’ This hymn always gives me peace and a sense of if I listen You will answer. I realise that during the past couple of weeks, where I have struggled He was there, where I was looking He sat beside me, when I was rushing He walked behind me, and when it was all just too much, it was then He held me close. I only had to look.
Be still for the presence of the Lord, the Holy One is here. Be still for the glory of the Lord is shining all around. Be still for the power of the Lord is moving in this place. No work too hard for Him, In faith received from Him. Be Still. One of my favourite hymns reminding me just to be still. Perhaps in recent weeks I have forgotten to be still and know my God, I have rushed around trying to be all things to all people, and not taken the time to just be still.
This Easter Sunday has been different, but that’s not a bad thing. We need to be shaken up once in a while. Perhaps understand the scriptures we think we know so well, in a different way.
Without even being aware of the difference in beat, I am dancing around the room, dancing to the beat of His heart. The words of Graham Kendrick’s tune, these words stand out most: ‘teach me to love with Your heart of compassion teach me to trust in the word of Your promise’
This Easter Sunday I have understood about Your compassion, and that’s not a easy journey, I need to show more compassion and trust in the word of Your promise. A Love so great You gave your only son to die for me
The final words came from Keith and Kristyn Getty , words that shows the Love from the Word which allows me to be me, and in being me I am enough.
Beneath the cross of Jesus
I find a place to stand
and wonder at such mercy
that calls me as I am
ruth180 