However much you may wish it to be true, there is no express train to Easter. The only way to Easter is through death and dying. We live in a Good Friday world. And truth be told, Good Friday is a better match for my soul. I don’t have anything against lilies, pretty dresses, deviled eggs, or trumpets or a glorious sunrise. It is just that suffering and pain seem to be so much more a part of our world than resurrection. "Good Friday is not hard to believe, but Easter, now that is hard to wrap your mind around. "
But before we even get to Good Friday, Holy Week starts with Palm Sunday. Despite the icy, cold rain and dreary skies yesterday, you could still feel the excitement in the room. The children were all lined up with their palm branches, getting ready to dance down the aisle and sing Hosanna! Hosanna! One little one just cried and cried when they were ushered from dancing back to the nursery to wait on mom and dad. In my most mean momma voice, I insisted that Davis wear a tie. I told him since he never gave me the pleasure of watching him dance down an aisle, he would most certainly dress for the occasion. He rolled his eyes and put on a tie and said, “Mom, you really gotta let go of that.” My brother in law told me at lunch yesterday, that at his church, they passed out the crosses on silver platters. He thought he was sampling an appetizer. I asked if he asked to have a little blue cheese with his heart of palm. Truth be told Palm Suday is a bit of an appetizer but waiting on the champagne can be hell.
After I pinned my cross to my sweater yesterday, I thought about him, and how very disappointed I was to still be wearing wool on Palm Sunday, and just how badly my brackets were busted and I was not going to finally beat Davis and Vance at bracketology this year. He and I met the week before Easter on Palm Sunday. That year, the bulbs were already blooming and it was not snowing and my brackets were in much better shape than yesterday.
He and I were about the same age, lived in the same town, raised in the buckle of the bible belt south and shared a mutual hatred for that school in Durham. He had three teenage kids, one of whom was serving in Iraq. He had cancer everywhere. He told me his church friends had told him to be happy- he was going home to be with Jesus. He wanted to shoot them all, I think I probably encouraged this. He knew that mounting one more battle on cancer would only add to his pain and suffering and would not change the outcome. He had the thing that everyone wants but no one wants to pay the price - he wasn’t afraid to die. We talked a lot about heaven and who would be there and who would not. He said he had read somewhere once that, “you can safely assume you have created God in your own image, when God hates all the same people you do. And besides imagine how boring heaven will be if you like everybody.” He taught me that goodness does not protect you from suffering. He died that week. I was with him the day he died. His son had gotten home the day before and was holding him when he drew his last breath. Those same church people gathered round his bed that day to sing him goodbye and to pray him home. They were none too happy about it either. They just didn’t know how they were going to celebrate Easter that Sunday without him. He was a father, a brother, a husband and their pastor. And to be honest, I didn't know how you have a funeral on an Easter Sunday either.
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