Five years ago, when we locked the church doors and went home to wait out covid, there was a huge barrel of colorful plastic eggs filled with candy sitting in the parlor waiting for the annual Easter Egg Hunt. For weeks, when I came up to church to check the mail I saw those bright eggs sitting there and felt a surge of joy in the midst of the fright hovering over us all in those early weeks of hand sanitizer, homemade masks, and zoom gatherings. In the eggs, I saw the love of this congregation for its young and I could almost hear the kids giggling with delight as they typically run with their wicker baskets.

Sometimes life offers us moments when we are not sure if we are overcome with grief or pulled into a new awareness of holy joy. At this very moment,  the trees budding, the sun shining, the days lengthening, the walkers and strollers and skaters pouring out onto the sidewalks. But simultaneously I am aware of the deep malaise of some of my close friends and family members who suspect their jobs will be cut due to government lay-offs and tariffs and the fear of others who worry that their economic stability will be radically altered by abrupt governmental policy shifts. I am hearing from faithful Christians on both sides of the political spectrum that the tensions they experience with loved ones feel uncomfortable at best but often unpalatable or even attacking.

Perhaps, Lent has come at just the right time for us. During Lent we remember that our Lord and Savior remained devoted to God’s path of love even when he experienced the most horrific pain and rejection by government, religion, and even those close to him. The story of our faith, from Moses to Jesus, from Ruth to Phoebe, from David to Paul, from exile to resurrection, is a story that encompasses the full range of human emotion. God is no stranger to joy and never goes into hiding when we face the dark night of despair.

Rosemerry Wahtola Tommer captures this feeling in the opening lines of her poem “For When People Ask” (All the Honey: Poems)

 I want a word that means
     Okay and not okay,
More than that:  a word that
means
 devastated and stunned with joy.
I want the word that says
            I feel it all all at once.  

God is with us in our joy and in our devastation. And if that joy and devastation arrives at the same moment, Christ embraces us fully because he knows what it is like to be “okay and not okay”

Grace and Peace,
Carla