Tag Archives: Easter

Hidden Baskets, Hidden God

At our house on Holy Saturday, Easter baskets are hidden. With enough activity on Sunday, we do the fun stuff on Easter Eve. This year, Sam’s basket is hiding safely in his clean laundry basket. When he finds it, both the basket and how often he puts away his clean clothes will be revealed.

Faithful to family tradition, I try to make finding the treasure of an Easter basket challenging. Who doesn’t, you might be thinking. But I am not referring to an ordinary level of challenging. I am speaking of a Grandma Florence level of challenging!

I have two distinct memories of desperate searches for my chocolate and real dyed-eggs-filled Easter basket at her tiny house, a house that magically expanded to fit all of the people during the holidays.

Once, my basket was expertly tucked into the large pouch of her walker. This meant my basket had moved around as I wildly hunted for it. Try to accuse grandma of cheating and I assure you it would not have gone well.

And the other one, well, although all childhood memories are suspect, I think this one is spot on. After a very long search, eight-year-old or so me begged my grandma for a single hint. “No hints,” she replied. More searching. Finally, she relented. I was allowed to pick up the landline phone and call my cousin at her house, who was a co-conspirator in the hiding. “One hint, please!” I begged. Eventually, I discovered the basket in her dishwasher, which was never ever used as a dishwasher. In the millions of visits to her house, I didn’t even realize the thing opened.

Who decided to hide Easter baskets? Luckily, we do not do the same at Christmas! It would be fitting if Easter basket hiding could be traced back to the hiding God on Holy Saturday.

God is hidden on this day sandwiched between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Jesus Christ, who was fully God and fully human, lay in a grave fully dead on this Holy Saturday. Last night in our congregation, a man sang “it is finished” in “Go to Dark Gethsemane” as a door slammed and the finality of Jesus’ life hung in the air, along with the smells of frankincense and myrrh.

It is finished. God has gone into hiding.

Luther described God as a God who went into hiding. For those interested in a theological rabbit hole (you know who you are!) here it is: Luther on the Hidden God, by Steven D. Paulson.

God went into hiding in the Garden of Eden and ever since, God has played hide-and-seek by showing up exactly where we are not looking. Do you think God is found in success and all the good things that happen in our lives. Nope. God is found in the hardship of the cross, in the agony of death, in the sorrow of our lives. Sure, God enjoys the good times, too, but God is more likely to be found where we are not looking.

The women did not go looking for God on the morning we now call Easter Sunday, but God is exactly who they found at the grave. This God is found where we may not seek: in hospital rooms, beside those celebrating Easter alone and far from home, in prisons, in homeless shelters, in Haiti, Gaza, and Ukraine.

God is found where we generally do not seek…which might also be true in Sam’s search for his Easter basket. “No hints.”

Photo by Alan Rodriguez on Unsplash

Easter Gathering

Are you ready? The time is near. Soon, you may be seated at a table beside the very family member you have been avoiding! Holiday gatherings can be tricky, don’t you think?

It is completely normal to feel some angst before a family gathering. Each and every family has its own history of not-so-beautiful moments. There are encounters we would do differently a second time around, or old grudges we cannot seem to let go.

This year, your table might be missing the matriarch who helped keep the peace, or the old uncle who made everyone laugh. What do these missing pieces mean for your gathering?

Instead of dreading the family gathering, let’s reframe it.

It is important to remember that every relationship is based on two parts. You are one part and your family is the other. Or maybe there is one family member in particular who drives you nuts, in which case, you are one part and the drive-you-nuts person is the other. Remember, your functioning also shapes the relationship. Blaming the other person for being annoying is unhelpful.

For example, you might be praying not to be seated beside that family member who knows everything about everything, who would spend hours (days?) imparting all her knowledge. Instead of avoiding this person, ask yourself this:

  • Why does it bug you so much?
  • What is it about this person that brings out an annoyed side of you?
  • Could you try to care less, or stay more neutral through the one-sided conversation?

Do you see? It isn’t only the other person’s functioning, but also your reaction that impacts the relationship. Two parts make a relationship.

Instead of moving right to annoyed, see if you there is something you might actually learn from this “knowledgeable” dinner partner. Can you find one interesting tidbit, or appreciate the person’s passion for that one certain subject? Pretend you are a news reporter and contribute a few questions to the conversation. If you seem interested, people think you are.

Are you ready? Yes, you are. May the food and the company surprise you with goodness.

Photo by Stella de Smit on Unsplash

The Great 3 Days: Hope is Freaking Hard

(Photo by Julia Volk on Pexels.com)

It is Easter Eve and all through the world pastors are hoping.

Pastors are hoping to wake up tomorrow feeling healthy and joyful and refreshed and ready for a long stretch of a morning. (Woe to pastors’ kids or spouses who keep them up too late tonight.)

Pastors are hoping to be overwhelmed today by imaginative ideas to preach a familiar story. (Or, if they are a J on the Myers Briggs like me, their sermons are finished and printed and quietly waiting on their desks for a final round of editing tomorrow morning.)

Pastors are hoping for safe gatherings in church buildings, or where such gatherings are not possible, they hope the disappointment felt in the congregation can somehow be lifted by this familiar story.

Pastors carry an abundance of hopes today in the middle of The Great Three days. Yesterday we remembered Jesus’ death on the cross. Tomorrow we remember the stone was rolled away. But today, if we live into this story there is nothing to see here but a regular cave tomb that a wealthy person let the Jesus followers borrow. There was so much worry among the powers of the day that a Jesus follower would steal his body and claim he had been resurrected, that they somehow set an unfathomably large rock in front of the entrance to the tomb.

I searched for a photo for this post of a tomb sealed by a rock, but I could only find pictures of a tomb where the rock had been rolled away. We move so quickly to Easter Sunday that we cannot even picture the tomb with the rock still in place. It is not hard to hope in what we know will happen at the tomb. It is freaking hard to hope in the everyday.

Do we dare hope to find the perfect marriage partner? Or hope the marriage partner we chose will be the one we can stick with? Do we dare hope our kids will not get into mounds of trouble? Can we hope the career we chose will work out? Or to retire while we are healthy enough to travel? Or that we will have enough money to retire? Do we dare hope the world isn’t falling apart? (This is a question asked every day there has ever been a world.)

What is a hope you have that you find freaking hard to hope?

A pastor’s job is to be preposterously hopeful. We have this great big hope that in the end, after marriages break or don’t, after kids disappoint and don’t, after jobs disappoint or don’t, after retirement or not, after the world actually doesn’t fall apart, it will all work out. The story that matters has been written. The enclosed tomb we look at today rolls open tomorrow. Allelu…. oops. Too soon.

Everyday hope is indeed hard. That I do know. I also know tomorrow morning we will proclaim with hope together in Christian churches around the earth and who knows where else the one hope we know. The stone moved. There is new life for you now and in the end, as long as you don’t try to move the stone all on your own. Then you can only hope for a backache.