This is obviously the strangest Easter any of us have experienced. I am seeing encouraging glimmers of community among Christians. Online services abound. Social media is full of greetings rooted in real faith. People are offering musical performances.
We all know what the backdrop is, though. A rampant virus, the resultant lockdown, and the politicization and polarization that had characterized the cultural landscape for some time and that persist in a moment when unity is the elusive nectar of which parched souls dream.
Still, there's something that burns in our hearts even though despondency lands in our guts. It's a pure flame that illuminates everything, when given our full focus. It renders our travails as of no lasting consequence.
If you really take in that Christ's rising was a literal event, that it was as visceral as it was spiritual, there's a hope that becomes the overriding factor in how you proceed into this day and into the rest of your earthly life.
The human species has seen a lot of amazing things throughout its time on this planet - astounding human achievements, as well as the horrific consequences of our worst natures. Human lives, if they last any appreciable length of time, are filled with everything from the most delightful mirth and rewarding relationships to the most rotten and teeth-grinding despair.
But one Sunday morning a couple of millennia ago, the meaning of it all came together in a man who joined two others as they walked to Emmaus. The other two at first didn't see anything remarkable about him. He was about their height and complexion. But once they recognized him, they understood the difference between that which passes away and that which is an immutable bedrock.
There's something besides the parade of confusing and transitory occurrences that comprise this world. That parade is not the last word about reality.
There's something absolutely pure, completely impervious to defilement.
It's Him. Beckon Him to sit at your table and make plain your real nature.
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