From the archive: Easter Joy and woe are woven fine

Entering into the greening power of new beginnings

photo by unsplash

Dear fellow pilgrim,

We have written about Christmas, Passion Week and Easter, so often now that they all blend together. And this seems right. For if Christmas is the fresh innocence of “God with us,” then Passion Week is the woeful human story of what happens when even God comes among us. If Christmas happened as we have heard, then Christ’s suffering our human condition seems inevitable.

And Easter is the joyful reassertion of God’s presence even among our sufferings, ever renewed, ever greening. The greening power evident even in winter’s chill.

Here lies our hope from Easter, amidst our sorrow. That joy and woe are intertwined, They are both here. They do not cancel each other, instead they enrich each other. They are essential parts of any human experience.

One of the greatest Easter joys for us was that, after four years, we finally figured out the baby phone so Hannah could sleep and we could participate in the Easter midnight service.

So we sat through the night h…