Easter Questions

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself volunteering with a group of people I’d never met before. They were all church-goers, but not Episcopalians. I knew this morning’s sermon was coming up, and I was looking for ideas. And so I asked them what questions they had about Easter. One wanted to know what Jesus meant when he said, “It is finished” from the cross. Another asked why “Good Friday” is called “Good.” A third said, “what’s up with the eggs and bunnies?”

As far as the eggs and bunnies are concerned, I’ve got nothing. Symbols of spring, maybe? Yesterday, as I was driving to the church, I saw a human-sized Easter bunny skipping through an empty field in City Park. I wish I’d gotten a video. The bunny looked like he was having a lot of fun, but his antics didn’t appear to have much to do with Jesus’s resurrection.

But what about the other questions my impromptu focus group asked me? Did you notice that their other questions were more about Good Friday than about Easter itself? Maybe that’s surprising. But maybe there’s a hidden wisdom there too. Because, like it or not, you can’t really understand one without the other.

There are usually a lot more people in church on Easter Day than on Good Friday. And I understand why. We all want to find joy, happiness, a reason to celebrate. It’s much more fun to sing “Alleluia!” than it is to look honestly at sin and suffering and death.

But the truth is that Easter matters because life is hard. Death comes first. Then—and only then—resurrection follows. Good Friday and Easter Day go hand-in-hand.

And so back to those questions.

“What did Jesus mean when he said, ‘It is finished’ on Good Friday?” There’s so much depth to those three short words. But they mean this at the least: Jesus had accomplished what he was born to do. He had walked his path to its end. Resurrection would come, but death and his suffering were real. He had lived out the lesson he taught: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

And “Why do we call ‘Good Friday’ ‘Good’”? There are theories, but no one’s entirely sure where the day got its name. In most languages, it’s “Holy Friday.” In Norway, they call it “Long Friday.” I like that name. My guess is that the word “Good” has stuck around in English because Good Friday holds within it the promise of Easter, because we know that its darkness will soon be turned to light.

The promise of resurrection can sometimes be hard to believe, though, hard even to see. We can be almost as skeptical of great joy as we are of great suffering.

Think about the scene in the Gospel we heard this morning. Mary Magdalene is weeping at Jesus’s tomb, weeping over his death, over the loss of the teacher she had come to love, and weeping because his body is now missing, because she no longer has even that last bit of him to hold on to, to care for. She’s so deep in sorrow that she doesn’t find it odd that there are angels in the tomb. She’s so deep in sorrow that when Jesus speaks to her, she mistakes him for the gardener.

But then Jesus speaks her name. “Mary,” he says. She recognizes him in that moment. And she begins to understand what has happened.

Try to imagine yourself in Mary’s place, sad, mourning, despairing. And then imagine Jesus speaking your own name.

The promise of Easter is that God calls to each of us, knows each of us by name.

But, as I said at the beginning, Good Friday and Easter Day go together.

The Christian faith doesn’t promise an easy life. It does promise this: no matter how difficult our path may be, we need not be afraid, because God has already triumphed. Yes, there is darkness. But the Light is greater. Yes, life will bring suffering and sorrow. But joy can be found even in the midst of them. And yes, death is real. But Christ is risen.

And so on this Easter morning, may we say with joy, Alleluia! Christ is risen! And may we remember those words even when our own paths grow dark. Alleluia! Christ is risen!

A blessed Easter to you all!