How am I to reconcile the beautiful promise of Easter with the ugly reality of COVID-19?

     I know by the calendar and by the beans sprouting in my garden that it’s spring time. But the coronavirus has turned this into a very different season. The pandemic has wrecked our busy agendas and humbled our portfolios. Our finest medical researchers confess to not knowing this and not knowing that, speaking more often of “hope” and “faith.” In short, COVID has crushed the illusion that we know all the answers and that we’re in control.

     It’s a very painful thing to learn, or relearn, as the case may be. No one sets out in the morning and says, “Ah, today I hope to be humbled.” As if the vine were to say to the vinedresser, “Please take your shears and cut me back. That’s it. Right to the stem!”

     While the Gospel of Christ is fundamentally a love story, it’s also a war story, depicting the age-old battle for our hearts. Will we remain infatuated with ourselves or acknowledge our Creator? Will pride, the enemy of our souls, destroy us before we finally learn humility?

     When I was a boy, I had trouble understanding what Good Friday was all about. Why, I wondered, if Jesus suffered so, if they mocked him and beat him and hung him on a cross, did people call it “Good?”

My Grandma Winnie, so often my spiritual teacher, explained it thus: “While that day was a very bad day for Jesus, it was a very, very good one for you and me.”

     It’s true. On the beautiful, horrible cross we find the most extravagant expression of love and humility the world has ever seen.

FRIDAY BONUS: If you have a minute or two, give a listen to “The Beautiful, Scandalous Night” by the Robbie Seay Band.

April 10, 2020