Dear St. John's Community,
I confess: until very recently, I had a hard time envisioning how we would do Holy Week and Easter this year. Naturally, it was a let down to think of "not having Easter"—especially as this is my first year at St. John's!
In fact, not being able to gather right now is legitimately something to grieve.
But let's set the record straight, we are
having Easter this year!
We will miss being gathered in person in our beautiful sanctuary, but in other ways we will be liberated, not tethered to our physical space. I don't want to reveal all the surprises, but with the gift of technology we may become
a church without walls. This includes taking ourselves to where Jesus walked.
As a small sneak peak, I am sharing this image of Jerusalem, taken on one of our Holy Land pilgrimages by Lu Leon, which will help to stir our imaginations and bring this important week vibrantly to life.
Let's remember, on that first Easter the disciples did not know what was happening. The darkness and the loss for them was real, but to their great surprise the light came to dispel the darkness on Easter morning in an utterly surprising way, more humbly and gradually than we often recall, and yet with more glory and power ultimately than we can usually grasp.
Just think, this year as we find ourselves walking a dark road together, we are in a position to enter the story of Easter more fully than perhaps at any other time in our communal lives.
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