Easter

This morning, by my own unscientific estimate, millions of Americans got online and watched Easter services.  Pastors and their families presented themselves in starched outfits, smiling with the excitement of Easter Sunday.   

Growing up, Easter was always an odd holiday for me. Shredded green plastic to resemble grass and blocks of cheap chocolate shaped like a bunny seemed like the weirdest of traditions. And then we all put on itchy clothes and argued our way to a church building, to look at everyone else’s itchy clothes and smile, pretending we didn’t itch or argue at all.  

As I grew up, I learned more and more lessons about traditions. They connect us to the past, and part of their beauty is knowing that we are following in celebrations that so many have done before us. They can be fun – I've been sent cute videos of the children of my friends opening Easter baskets and smiled at the cuteness....   

But.... 

That’s not really the story of Easter, is it?  

And....we’re in a pandemic. We’re stuck. In our houses. In our uncertainty. In a space of unknowing.  

And THAT feels closer to the real story of Easter.  You see, traditions that intend to point us to a long history of honoring the Easter story can become blurred with a culture of covering and avoiding and presenting a saccharine image of ourselves, our communities, and our faith.  

Jesus died.  

For decades churches have asked us to put on our best clothes, pretend we didn’t itch, and smile as we greet one another.   

We live as if Saturday didn’t happen. We skip it. We go right from the pain of Friday and jump to Sunday.  

And we do not allow the real story, of Easter, OR OF OURSELVES the space it needs.  

A huge reason that people of my generation and younger are walking away from the church and never returning are because they are just utterly exhausted of the bullshit.  I said it. BULLSHIT. The bullshit of an incomplete Gospel that looks for the tulips and starched clothes of Easter Sunday while ignoring the awkward waiting and uncertainty of Saturday.   

Death, unknowing, dirty, dusty, unswept, messy Saturday. Stuck and uncomfortable and human.  

As many of you know, I am a trauma-focused therapist. I did not come into this career through the typical path. I spent many years working with students, community members, and others just being one human learning about other humans whose lives didn’t look like my own. Until I realized they did. Trauma doesn’t happen equally to all of us. But we ALL know the itchiness of being uncertain, being unwanted, being uncomfortable, and not being in control. And having no choice but to just sit in it.  THAT is a common thread across the human story, AND the Saturday of the Gospel.  

And as a therapist (and a human) I have learned that we cannot leave Saturday. WE HAVE TO GO THERE.  We must sit in the uncomfortable in order to heal.  

Let me repeat that.  

We must sit in the uncomfortable in order to HEAL.  

Not in order to get to the sunny picture on Sunday. Not to present ourselves as something or someone who is accomplished, has succeeded, or has been made complete or perfect.  We’re not Jesus. He may love us as if we are perfect, but trust me....none of us are.   

And if we present ourselves as having arrived, having completed the story, we are lying.  

Let me repeat that. WE ARE LYING.  

We are spreading a false Gospel message. And we are doing harm. By ignoring our own Saturdays, we are telling everyone else that they should, no, they MUST ignore theirs as well.  

Healing happens on Saturday. As a person who has sat with countless others as they shared their Friday stories (being unloved, unwanted, abused, not listened to, lot cared about, cast aside, silenced, etc.), I am telling you....you CANNOT rush to Sunday. You cannot avoid the Saturday. The pain, the ache in the back of your throat as you acknowledge the horror of how awful Friday was. How awful the pain or neglect or trauma was...you must feel it. You must. The depth of what makes us human, the place where deity connects with our humanity, is on Saturday.  God is found there, on Saturday, waiting to acknowledge and love our true selves. To sit with us, feel awkward with us, cry with us, wrestle with us, and calm the panic that arises within us when we attempt to sit in our own version of Saturday.  THAT is where we learn who we really are, and where we truly learn who God is, who God is within us.  

If you rush to Sunday, it is not a true story. It is just an itchy dress and some plastic grass. Nothing grows out of plastic grass.  

So, as we are stuck in a shared Saturday of a pandemic, of quarantine within our own homes, let us meet with our real selves, and our real God in the middle of it. In our own dirt of Saturday, real grass (the messy kind with bugs and chaos) will grow.