Good Morning Easter

Good morning, Easter.  The house is quiet.  Tim is running.  The boys are asleep.  And here I am with you.  I feel a kinship with the ladies of Easter.  They came to greet you in the early morning, not even knowing you waited for them, not even knowing you were their destination.  They came with  heavy hearts, the burden of grief and loss obscuring their sight, robbing them of vision.  I sense I am like that too.  There is so much on my mind.  It makes me grumpy.  Blind.  I long for much.  I live in the tension of what I long for and what is.  And because my mind is elsewhere I miss seeing you, the wonder of God's Hope and Love, right before me.

What I love about you Easter, is that you do not stop to wait for blurry eyes to recognize you.  You arrive in our midst and set to work, righting wrongs, resurrecting dreams, relieving sorrow with joy.  You are new life springing forth, bringing your gifts before we are aware of them, certainly before we are worthy of them.  How so very much like our Savior you are.  Gentle.  Persistent.  Insistent.  Unstoppable.  Unstaunchable.  Very much alive.  Even today you are very much alive.  Often arriving while we are still asleep, to groggy and incoherent to say our own names. 

So I love it when you call us by name.  The Savior's voice drifts across your morning dew.  In that simple act of love we hear our names spoken where we have no reason to expect it.  Hearing that one familiar word, spoken in such familiar intimacy, by our beloved Lord, at the same time familar and unrecognizable, changes everything.  Hearing our name infused with the promise of new life changes us.  Here we are, blindly longing for something that we don't even need, to complete the rituals of death.  And then you, Easter, step in and change everything, beyond all our imagining. 

I'm so glad it is Easter.  I need Easter in my life.  I need to hear my name spoken in hope, the sound waves penetrating the veil of my tears and unbelief.  I need to be called to newness I have not even imagined.  I need you.  So I welcome you this quiet morning as the rest of the world wakens. 

My sweet husband is back from his run.  Soon sleepy boys will emerge, ready for poptarts and cartoons.  It is time for my own morning run.  To begin setting out Sunday clothes.  To start our journey toward worship so that we may greet you formally.  But I am so grateful for this quiet moment to say good morning and . . . thank you.