Resurrection in the midst of death

This is Easter 2020:

Yesterday the death toll from COVID-19 passed 10,000 in New York State.  A month ago we had just had our first death.  Our focus was on Italy, with its horrible numbers and reality.  I'm not sure we knew that it would be just as bad here.

It's Easter.  And all around us people are sick, dying, being buried in ways we never thought we'd see outside of wartime.

It's Easter.  On Sunday Ernesto led a service for hundreds at the Beatrice (Nebraska) Speedway, preaching new life out of the old.  Elizabeth preached resurrection to those of us gathered on Zoom.  We found ways to celebrate, to be together, to believe in resurrection.

How do we hold together the pain and the promise of this time?
I'm crying when I see the numbers, while I pray for those souls and those who love them.
I'm smelling flowers and watching the birds and trees and bunnies wake up.
I'm standing in the middle, not balancing, just holding it all.

Well, no.  I'm not holding it.  That's Christ's business.  "He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together . . . For in him all the fullness of God was please to dwell" (Colossians 1:17,19).

All the fullness of God.  Not just the happy parts.  Not just the pain either.  All of it.  All things are reconciled in Christ: death and life, sin and forgiveness.  In Christ, the pain of crucifixion and all the other deaths is held with the promise of new life and of transformation.  Mary's grief becomes shock, and joy, but the trace of grief remains to give texture and depth to the joy.  All the fullness of God.

On Sunday Ernesto talked about the empty churches as "empty tombs."  He reminded us that Christ is alive, is here among us wherever we gather.  Christ comes into the tombs of our hearts as well.  Mary stood weeping, and couldn't even recognize Jesus in her grief.  And then he called her name.

May you, this day, hear your name.  May you know the possibility of new life in the midst of whatever grief and fear you face today.  May you go and tell others who need to know.  All things hold together, as we hold together.  We are the body of Christ.