Grieving Easter

So many of us are grieving our usual Easter celebration this year, the loss of community and sacred spaces, and then there are those grieving the losses of jobs and lives. Grief and Easter seem like they should be at odds. We somehow imagine that Easter joy should obliterate any mourning we might be doing.

I remember the dissonance of Tom's wake on Easter Sunday afternoon, the blaring trumpets and brimming light from the Vigil still sharp in my memory as I stood next to my husband's coffin in the softly lit funeral home. I believe in the resurrection and life everlasting, yet at the same moment I was standing before death's terrible stillness.

Jesus wept at Lazarus' death, though he knew that he could — and would —  raise him from the dead. He knew what the resurrection would bring, the share of everlasting life that Lazarus would enjoy. Even so he stood before that cold stillness, weeping. He mourned.

We, too, can rejoice this Easter, kindling once again the Lumen Christi, even as we mourn what has been lost. Easter's joy does not erase the pain and chaos of the Passion, instead Easter anchors our pain in salvation, orienting it toward life. We can rejoice, we can weep, for our God rejoices and weeps with us, even now.

___________
There is also this column from almost a decade ago on paradoxical celebrations of Easter with thoughts from St. Augustine: Flustered for Joy