A sunny day, not too chilly. Some of us didn’t even need our coats. Birds singing all around. And people singing, too, albeit behind masks. Brilliant flowers from someone’s garden – already?! – around the base of the ancient pulpit that’s really more of a podium, the one from the old church (no, the one before that), which had been called back from retirement because it’s actually portable.
That old listing cross made out of tree limbs once by some long-departed member, that usually stands off to the side by the chancel, was especially prominent this morning because it was standing on the grass next to the temporary pulpit, draped in celebratory liturgical white.
People kept arriving, even after we thought we’d waited for the last ones. [“I had to wait for the cable people, believe it or not!”] Welcome, new members! Welcome, visitors! Welcome back, Everyone!
“Christ is risen!”
“He is risen indeed! Alleluia!”
As our pastor pointed out, the women who went to the tomb heard that young man dressed in white say “He is not here” and for a moment it must have sounded like the worst news – until, suddenly, it was the best news. “He is going ahead of you,” to Galilee, and beyond.
Even unto the back parking lot of a tiny church in an obscure southern Indiana town.
Alive, and making everything new.
And not complaining, but I think we could have managed “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.” Verily.
Video: by Grace Presbyterian Church, Peoria, Illinois, April 16, 2020; Image: “Grape Hyacinths, April 26th,” (cropped), Andrea_44 from Leamington, Ontario , Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Matters of Interpretation 