Oh, Easter, How We Need You

I'm not sure I'm going to need a new Easter dress this year. 

I ordered a bunch of candidates, but I don't know if I'm going to keep any of them, not only because I'm not in love with them but, so much more, because I'm not sure I'm going to have an occasion to wear them.

But I am very, very sure of this: I need Easter. In fact, I'm sure we all need it, maybe more than we've ever needed it at any other time in history, save one.

I'm not talking about needing the reopening of businesses, as President Trump recently put forth.

I'm not even talking about needing to be able to gather in sanctuaries together, though that surely is a longing of so many aching souls.

I'm talking about needing the pieces of Easter that are not in question, because they've already been answered. I'm talking about needing the details of Easter that are not TBD, because they've already been determined.

We desperately need Easter, no matter what it ends up looking like. If it looks different than other years, it will follow in good stead, because the first Easter also looked entirely unlike anyone expected it to.

Jesus’ followers expected that first Easter Sunday to look dark.

They expected it to reek of death.

They expected it to be shrouded in fear and uncertainty. 

They expected it to be heavy with disappointment.

Close to 2,000 years later, we know about these things.

But that first Easter, eleven words changed everything.

“He is not here. He is risen, just as He said.”

These words and the truth behind them turned the expected on its heel. 

Dark went to light.

Death went to life.

Fear went to hope. 

Uncertainty went to blessed assurance. 

Disappointment went to fulfillment.

Defeat went to victory. 

We need these gifts and maybe we need them with an urgency we've never known before. These riches are ours to take hold of, held out to us by the Giver of every good gift, Who is not waiting around to see if Easter will happen this year.

No matter what we end up wearing or where we end up wearing it or who might be near us to compliment us on a new dress, this Easter can blow our expectations out of the water. 

No matter what we’ll be wearing, our certain celebration is based on what Jesus WASN’T wearing that Easter: His grave clothes. 

This is the only thing we need to know to look forward, full-on, to Easter this year. 

Let’s give the anticipation its due. Let’s put more weight on what we know than what we don’t. Let’s wait with eager hope. Let's look forward in confident expectation that our deepest needs will be met. And then let's watch God do, again, the glorious unexpected.

Maybe Getting Back To Normal Shouldn't Be What We Want Most

 Normal is officially on hiatus. 

Whatever normal might ever have been, it isn’t right now. 

We are still doing some "normal" things, of course. We are eating and sleeping and laughing and crying and working and learning.

But even these most basic elements of "normal” we are doing in new ways. 

We are eating, but more at home and possibly using ingredients we've stocked up on more than usual.

We are sleeping, but some of us more fitfully and some of us just more.

We are laughing, but maybe feeling a little guilty about it.

We are crying, but maybe more often and about things we aren't even sure we understand.

We are working (some of us, and we're thankful for it), but from home or on a reduced schedule or at a different job we've hastily gotten to fill in the gaps.

We are learning, but in different ways and places and at different paces. Some learning is much slower, and some is so fast we can't keep up with it.

And then there are the normal things we are not doing and the abnormal things we are doing. 

We are not shaking hands or eating in restaurants or getting together. We are not, some of us, going to work or church.

We are staying home and washing our hands A LOT and canceling plans and seeing a great many posts about toilet paper.

We are, frankly, already tired of all of it: the erased normal and the altered normal and the abnormal. We have not actually been living on this normalcy hiatus for very long, but it already feels like a lifetime, and we are DONE.

Life called, and it wants its normal back.

But maybe getting back to normal shouldn't be what we want most.

Some of the not-as-normal things we are doing are things we needed—and need—to do. Things like working out our patience muscles. Things like checking on the vulnerable and asking, "Does anybody need anything I can provide?" Things like seeking out opportunities to help and serve. Things like spending extended time with our families and not just at the holidays. Things like realizing what matters most. 

Things like stripping away some busyness. Things like making sure the people we love know it. Things like breathing and going outside and taking walks and soaking up sunshine. Things like figuring out what we can do without. Things like appreciating a lot of pieces of normal life we take for granted.

Some of these not-so-normal things are the byproducts of not being able to do a lot of usual life. We've had space and wide margins opened up, and we've filled them with some things that might be good to keep around when normal—or a new version of it, anyway—returns.

Instead of getting back to normal, maybe what we should want more is to get forward to something better. 

To a place where we recognize that there were some good things missing from our old normal and so we decide, gratefully, to make them part of our new. 

Why We Need a Little Christmas Right This Very Minute

The Hallmark Channel recently announced it's scheduling a Christmas movie marathon during the coronavirus self-quarantine. 

People are putting their Christmas lights back up (or patting themselves on the back for never having taken them down in the first place).

And I absolutely understand why.

I understand, because for days, I've had a show tune running through my head: "We Need a Little Christmas," from the musical Mame.

The musical, based on a book and a Broadway play, is set in New York City against a backdrop of the Great Depression and World War II. It tells the story of its eccentric namesake who, after she loses her fortune, decides she and her household need some Christmas. 

Now. 

"This very minute," in fact.

Mame calls for "candles in the window" and carols around the piano. But I think Hallmark and the people who are putting their Christmas lights back up understand we need something a lot more right now than just comfortingly sappy story lines and decorative illumination.

We need the close comfort of home and family. We need to be grateful. We need to think of others. We need cheer. We need peace. We need goodwill. We need joy. 

We need hope. 

We need these gift of Christmas, and it feels like we really do need them right this very minute. 

The similarities between the time stamp of Mame—the Depression and WWII—and the time we're living in right now feel a little eerie. NOT that we are in a depression...but our worldwide economy surely has taken a hefty blow. NOT that we are in a military battle...although it does feel as though our entire world is fighting a weighty war.

So if pulling from the best parts of the Christmas season—the parts that aren't bound by any month on the calendar—can help us all navigate a season none of us has ever been through before, I say bring it on.

If anyone needs me, I'll be cranking up the Christmas music, digging out my Christmas lights, rounding up my Christmas tree cookie cutter, and putting on my official Hallmark Christmas movie-watching socks. I need them. And so much more than that, I need to give all the deeper gifts that go with them. 

This very minutes. Now. Always.