The Shadow of Easter

It is a cold, rainy day here in central Indiana. I've gotten soaked twice today and my umbrella now catches rain instead of shielding others from it. It feels more like November than April. Maybe that's why Easter has a new patina. Or...maybe that just always happens. We celebrate in that moment but as we move away its shadow is all we can really see as it grows longer and longer the further we move away from it.

Perhaps such a feeling is only from the perspective of a clergy person. We are so busy in Lent, then comes Holy Week and we rush to get everything ready. Then Easter morn arrives and there is all of this great activity - the special programs, the confirmations and baptisms (- which I'm still really excited about. They all went well and I hope serve as a significant moment in the faith journeys of those who participated.), the crowds, and the gatherings after worship. We get through all of this and I'm wiped out, ready for a break, just trying to catch my breath.

But I'm still haunted by the question from Luke's gospel, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" Through my preparation for last Sunday's sermon, I decided that another way to ask that question or one that brings it home to us, or at least me, is, "Will you now rise and do - be - live life differently?" The resurrection finds meaning I think when we see it in our own lives.

We reach a point in relation to most shadows when they can no longer be seen. The light casting the shadow goes away; we move too far away from the light such that the shadow becomes imperceptible; or something blocks our view. Not so with the Easter shadow. It continues to be there where we can see it and inviting us back towards the light that casts it. Even darkness cannot eclipse it.