“Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks, and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared; for today is holy to our Lord. Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength” (Neh 8:10).
Happy Easter. Have you entered into the joy of this season of feasting with your whole heart? Are you singing Alleluia and wearing white and gathering daffodils?
Or is the cross you carried during Lent still making it hard to skip and be joyful?
Can we be an Easter people even when life is hard?
We are Easter people because we believe that Christ — the savior who was crucified and buried in a tomb — rose from the dead. That is the truth that enlivens our faith. Life has taught us that faith does not mean we will not experience suffering. On the contrary, our savior promised us a share in his cross. He said we would suffer with him. But Easter people are granted the strength and grace to trust that God walks with them in sorrow and offers them hope always. Our Alleluia song is one that bears testimony to that hope and enables us to extend compassion and mercy to others in their life and to look forward to eternity with gladness. We may not sing and skip through late April, but we lift our eyes toward heaven and love with joy even if we’re still struggling with the crosses of February and March.
Sometimes, Catholics are “good” at Lent and not so good at Easter. We embrace the season of penance and piety and sacrifice. It feels right when the whole church rallies around crosses and even the songs are somber. But then, we get left behind at Easter. Alleluia gets stuck in our throats because the true cross Christ chose for us to carry is not one that was lifted in precisely 40 days. The darkness of suffering persists despite the candlelit Easter Vigil.
That is life on this side of heaven. There always will be a cross in our own lives and in the world at large. Truthfully, there is no glorious triumph over death without the brutal and bloody cross. But we aren’t trapped in the tomb. We are not held in the bondage of despair and discouragement and defeat. Even though we know the weight of the cross, faith compels us to run toward the tomb, believing that it is possible to find the stone rolled away and the Lord alive and well among us.
Hope is the wind at our backs as we run. And when we get there, it is joy that lights the celebration. Jesus is alive. That Holy Spirit is here now, in this springtime, and he promises the great joy of eternity. So even if your step is heavy because the cross still weighs you down, you have an Advocate who will carry it with you. He’ll hold it for you if you want to stop a moment, notice the daffodils and gather a bunch for yourself. If you let him, he’ll help you perceive how fresh the air smells and how brightly the sun is shining. He’ll help you find your voice.
And when you do, remember that St. Augustine said, “We are Easter people and ‘Alleluia’ is our song.” For the struggling among us and the skeptics of April, he added, “Let us sing here and now in this life, even though we are oppressed by various worries, so that we may sing it one day in the world to come, when we are set free from all anxiety.”
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes from Connecticut.
