No Lilies??? - Rector's Rambling for April 12, 2020

Alleluia!

Christ is Risen!

The Lord is Risen Indeed!

        Alleluia!

This will be an Easter Day that we will never forget.  When word came out in mid-March that the bishops of the Episcopal Dioceses in Michigan had decided that were would be no public worship in our churches until May 10, “including Holy Week and Easter”, those words hit like a slap to the face.

No Holy Week?  No Easter?  Impossible!!!!  Surely this cannot be real!

By now we know that it is real and we continue to hope and pray for an end to the spread of this virus, and a return back to the worship of the Church that God desires us to participate in!

But it was last Sunday afternoon, Palm Sunday, that the fullness of the new reality hit me again.  No procession, no “All glory, laud, and honor” being sung with gusto as we circumambulate the nave of the church with palms in hand.

And then I slumped down at the thought that the best week of the year, liturgically, had been scrubbed from our participation at St. John’s.  Spy Wednesday Tenebræ, Maundy Thursday Mass and Garden Watch, and Good Friday three hours together in the church: gone.  The great drama and wonder of the Easter Vigil: gone.

Then the final blow – no lilies.  No glorious decoration of the altars with their wonderful happy appearance and that heavenly smell.  No lilies for Easter.  I was at a great low at that realization.  The tears began to flow.  No parishioners, no choir and no lilies.

I moped for the rest of the afternoon, spending some time reading and praying.  And at the end of Evening Prayer, I had what was a divinely inspired revelation,  like a light bursting through the window in the scene in one of my favorite movies, The Blues Brothers.

Jesus is Risen.  Although we cannot be together and cannot celebrate with all the festivities of choir with brass, and even though there will be no lilies – Jesus is with us because He has risen from the dead and He is Lord!  Easter is NOT cancelled.  The Jewish authorities tried to cancel Jesus, as did the Roman authorities.  Our sins that drove Jesus to the cross tried to cancel Jesus.  Jesus conquered sin and death and is risen!  Easter is not cancelled, just different this year.  May God grant us a deeper appreciation for His Son, for His Church, and the gift of  being together next year, God willing!