Fifty Days of Gratitude: Easter Sunday & Monday

Twelve years ago I began this practice of naming gratitude daily during the Fifty Days of Easter.  I remember the season well; at that time it was filled with transition and difficulties in relationship and life and common life.  Naming gratitude seemed a good counterweight to those things that weighed down heart and spirit.  This is still true, although this practice has evolved in many ways.  I’ve learned to forgive myself if I miss a day or three.  After all, this is not a practice of perfection or striving, but of noticing and naming.  I’ve also learned that not every days’ naming needs to be eloquent or complicated.  I might write a long essay or I might write a short sentence, like “I’m grateful for cinnamon rolls.”  Both are equally valid.  This isn’t a discipline so much as it is a practice. 

So, for this Easter Sunday and Monday I am grateful for the surprising ways my life is touched by those whose deaths I have learned of this morning.  Pope Francis and Michael, the son of a couple I knew while in seminary. 

Michael had lived arguably longer than expected after a massive stroke some years ago and the miraculous recovery that followed.  His different abilities in life did not hinder him from living fully, though.  When sharing news of his death this morning his mother noted that he had feasted with them at their Easter table yesterday and after dying in his sleep in the early hours, now feasted with his God. 

A reminder that the table is wide and long and the saints we love and the saints we have not loved all get to eat there.

Even as Michael’s family and friends mourn, the world mourns Pope Francis.  I must confess that I have complicated feelings about the RC Church and the papacy, not surprising for a Lutheran, I suppose. When we visited the Vatican in 2016, I exclaimed in awe at the beauty found in that place and muttered under my breath at the true cost of it all.  And it seemed, at least outwardly, that Francis had some sense of that complexity.  Or that two things could be true at the same time, which is honestly one of my top 5 life lessons.  Frances seemed to search for ways forward where there had previously not been a way.  I pray that those inroads are sustained into the future.  If we look at American history, and maybe all history, we know that there could be a counter movement that follows.  Just look at our Obama – trump – Biden – trump swing in this country.  It’s as though we can’t bear the thought of progress that might benefit those who are traditionally marginalized. 

I learned today that in the final Easter sermon Francis wrote, which was delivered by another priest, his first words were “Mary Magdalene”.  If for nothing else, I will respect this pope for his tireless work to right the wrongs of the Church as it marginalized this Apostle to the Apostles.  The first to bear the news of the Resurrection.  The faithful companion and follower of Jesus.   Here is an excerpt from his Easter sermon, which is a capstone of the work he’d done to recover Mary Magdalene’s place as primary among the saints:

Mary Magdalene, seeing that the stone of the tomb had been rolled away, ran to tell Peter and John.  After receiving the shocking news, the two disciples also went out – and as the Gospel says – “the two were running together” (Jn20:4). The main figures of the Easter narratives all ran!  On the one hand, “running” could express the concern that the Lord’s body had been taken away; but, on the other hand, the haste of Mary Magdalene, Peter and John expresses the desire, the yearning of the heart, the inner attitude of those who set out to search for Jesus.  He, in fact, has risen from the dead and therefore is no longer in the tomb.  We must look for him elsewhere.

This is the message of Easter: we must look for him elsewhere.  Christ is risen, he is alive!  He is no longer a prisoner of death, he is no longer wrapped in the shroud, and therefore we cannot confine him to a fairy tale, we cannot make him a hero of the ancient world, or think of him as a statue in a museum!  On the contrary, we must look for him and this is why we cannot remain stationary.  We must take action, set out to look for him: look for him in life, look for him in the faces of our brothers and sisters, look for him in everyday business, look for him everywhere except in the tomb.

We must look for him without ceasing.  Because if he has risen from the dead, then he is present everywhere, he dwells among us, he hides himself and reveals himself even today in the sisters and brothers we meet along the way, in the most ordinary and unpredictable situations of our lives.  He is alive and is with us always, shedding the tears of those who suffer and adding to the beauty of life through the small acts of love carried out by each of us.

For this reason, our Easter faith, which opens us to the encounter with the risen Lord and prepares us to welcome him into our lives, is anything but a complacent settling into some sort of “religious reassurance.”  On the contrary, Easter spurs us to action, to run like Mary Magdalene and the disciples; it invites us to have eyes that can “see beyond,” to perceive Jesus, the one who lives, as the God who reveals himself and makes himself present even today, who speaks to us, goes before us, surprises us.  Like Mary Magdalene, every day we can experience losing the Lord, but every day we can also run to look for him again, with the certainty that he will allow himself to be found and will fill us with the light of his resurrection.

For the wide table of the saints in heaven, where perhaps Michael and Francis and Mary are sharing a toast and a smile with those I have loved and with those I have not, I am grateful on this Easter Sunday/Monday.