The Pastor’s Page

Rev. Ed’s Ed-ibles …

Dear Members and Friends,

Many churches cancelled or held their Easter sunrise services indoors this year. The combination of a snowy winter and an early Easter was simply too much for Mother Nature’s rising sun to overcome. One longtime attendee of such services remarked, “Easter just wasn’t the same.”

This worshipper’s sentiment reminds me of how most of us attach ourselves to some little slice of a particular experience and associate it with the essence of what it represents. And, of course, this is how ritual begins and works.

“If we’re seeking new life in this world, we have to let go of our past.”

It happens for me in many forms around holidays. Christmas wouldn’t be the same without late-night Christmas Eve communion. Thanksgiving wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without a particular gelatin salad smothered in cream cheese dressing my mother made when I was a kid. Easter wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t spend it with certain friends who’ve become like family. Whether its worship, food, friends, or family, ritual has many expressions.

This is a reminder, that “truths”: God, love, salvation, meaning, can’t be captured and held as if they were our possessions. They may be like the “things we love,” but they are always more than these things we associate with them. As soon as we “hang onto them” in our particular cherished form they begin to lose their power to move, transform and save us – and our world.

Mary – and all Jesus’ disciples – wanted to hold onto to Jesus following his death. But, he would not be held. He needed to move on ahead, and he did. It’s a good thing he did. Trying to catch him, still, keeps those of us who follow him today eternally alive!

Herein lies the great irony of Easter: to experience its fullness – all of its promise of new life – we have to be willing to let go of what we have known. If we’re seeking new life in this world, we have to let go of our past. But, if it’s eternal life of the soul we seek, we have to let go of everything upon which we’re based!

Now, how many people are ready and willing to do that? Most people only let go mere particulars even grudgingly. How about you?

Eastertide Blessings,

Ed Koonz