What Does Easter Mean to You?

Technically, Easter is the period of fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday. So although our traditional Easter Sunday has passed...I'm still thinking about the resurrection. I guess it means more to me this year, this promise of God's breath resurrecting dry dead bones. This past year has been one of great losses for many. One of the things I think about on Easter are some of the ways I see people believing in the power of resurrection. My friends, who before they met lost spouses through divorce, each lost a children through death related to SUD and Mental Health issues but somehow in the intervening years found each other. Today they are married and living a resurrected life. They have certainly not forgotten their losses, but have found their dry, dead bones breathed on by God, revived by love when they least expected it.

Or my friend Lori who finds a sense of purpose in sitting with other mom's who have lost children. Or another who, having lost a child pours all his energy into finding ways to help other families maybe save their own children before it is too late. What generosity of spirit! They have not run from their deaths; they have leaned into resurrection. And it is hard.

Or someone who early on in the pandemic donated extra that she had to help pay rent for someone in our community who could not have kept her home without that support. Totally unsolicited, unaware of the need, she gave at a time, just the right time, to revive a young couple who was losing all hope.

This is not just an individual matter. Consider St. James Church here in Richmond, Va. which burned in 1994. Built in the 1770's it burned to the ground. But what did they do? They carried on. They even acquired a motto: "Let us rise up and build" Nehemiah 2:18.

How might we all benefit from a new motto, after a long year of losses?How might we rise up and build?