Happy Easter
April 21, 2019
I WAS walking through the lobby of an “assisted living” facility about two years ago when I saw a touching and beautiful sight.
Someone had brought in a glass tank filled with straw and placed it on a table in the lobby, where the residents gathered to watch television and stare off into the distance. Racing about in little circles inside the tank were several small, fuzzy, energetic, and bewildered baby chicks.
An old woman — partly balding, no longer in possession of her full mind, clearly out of touch with the important and complicated world beyond this place — sat in front of the tank, which was lit with a warming incubator light. She was riveted. Every particle of her being, it seemed, was concentrated on the sight before her. Sitting as close to the tank as possible and hunching over to see as much as she could, she stared at the chicks without moving or speaking.
It was genius and great kindness on the part of whoever brought the chicks there. They were filled with an energy and newness the old woman no longer possessed. And, like her, their existence was caught up in the tiniest of things. The sight of them gave her new life.
We all possess within us the capacity for rebirth. Whether we are old or young, rich or poor, happy or sad, smart or senile, we have the capacity for resurrection. In that way, our inner drama reflects the greatest event in human history, the mystery which we celebrate today.
“Brethren, purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new paste, as you are unleavened: for Christ our Pasch is sacrificed. Therefore let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (Epistle: 1 Cor. v. 7-8)
God promised he would come. And He did. He promised He would rise from the dead. And He did.
May your Easter be filled with joy and may you ever be born anew in Christ’s eternal promises.
