Easter 2020

It’s 8:45 a.m. Easter morning 2020. Marlo and I are heading toward Faith Church. Next to me on the seat are a two copies of the children’s message for this morning (one for me and one for the projectionist), a lily bulb, a cloth mask lined with a disposable insert, and a canister of Chlorox wipes.

As I enter the empty and echoing foyer, there are no smiles and hugs and handshakes to wish me happy Easter or to say “The Lord is risen.” Besides me and Marlo, there are only six others: pastor, projectionist, pianist, song leader, sound manager, recording technician.

Before I near the others, I put on my mask—careful not to touch my face as I do so. I clean my microphone box, earpiece, and cord with a Chlorox wipe and then attach it to my ear. I realize I have no belt on which to clip the mike box. I borrow Marlo’s.

Then in a circle with eight feet separating each of us, we learn the logistics. I ask if I can stand for the message instead of sitting on the steps as I normally do when there are children present. That is fine, the pastor says. I disinfect my designated music stand, arrange my script, sit eight feet from everyone, remove my mask, and wait my turn.

The pastor has told us that when he says “Christ is risen” we respond with the traditional “He is risen indeed,” with as much energy as our five voices can muster. Then, either we miss our cue or he forgets to pause: He goes right from “Christ is risen” to “He is risen indeed,” without our chiming in.

Our voices thin in the cavernous space, we sing a hymn and recite the Apostle’s Creed. I miss the support of an assembled throng

After the creed, I speak to the children, asking them to shout their answers to my questions at their screens. I ask what the special name is for this Sunday. I hold up one of the potted lilies aloft and ask them to name it. I can’t hear their answers, of course, but I pretend I do, and tell them, “Right! It’s Easter Sunday.”

“Right! This is an Easter lily.” It is, I think, an act of faith, that some of them somewhere in their homes are answering. Together we look at pictures of Resurrection lilies which shoot up leaves in spring, die back, and then mid-August shoot up a sudden stalk of flowers. They are a flower of resurrection!

My part completed, I join Marlo at the rear of the sanctuary to listen to the sermon. Our pastor’s theme today is “Easter Surprise.” The disciples weren’t expecting a resurrection, he says. They were surprised—and they were not making up a piece of fiction. And if they had lying and making up a tale, they certainly would not have picked Mary Magdalene as the first messenger of Christ’s resurrection. As a woman, her testimony was not acceptable in Jewish courts. Besides, she had been possessed of seven demons.

As I listen, I survey the empty pews stretched out before me like a row of empty days. I try to picture them filled and fail. I try to picture this worship going out to home after home, but the effort leaves me tired and sad.

The message done, we start the final hymn, ”Because He Lives.” With that first phrase, I leave Pella 2020. It is 2014, and I am in my parent’s Orange City sanctuary. It is my father’s funeral. With a throng of friends and family we sing the words:

Because he lives, I can face tomorrow.”
Because he lives, all fear is gone.

During his final month on earth, my father played that hymn at least once each day, with tears in his eyes and on his cheeks, and hope in his heart.

Because I know, he holds the future,
And life is worth the living, just because he lives.

As the hymn ends, I return to this Easter morning 2020 in Pella. Returning, I know that although rows upon rows of pews are empty, I am surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. Facing day after empty day of Covid-19 unknowns, I can face the future—together with the saints on earth and the saints who have gone before us into glory.

Christ is risen.
He is risen indeed.
Alleluia.