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I find myself wondering if birthdays are celebrated on the other side of the veil. In whatever way you are held between shadow and light, between the Garden and the new Jerusalem where you dwell in joy with your Christ, I wonder if your birthday into your first world is being remembered – celebrated – if God is rejoicing over you with singing,
It is Holy Saturday today. The whole country is in quarantine. So our Good Friday service, like most church services these days, was done on Zoom: Priests, in an empty sanctuary (faithfully fulfilling their role as shepherds even when we cannot gather as their flock), put on their robes, faced a camera, and enacted sacraments of worship as they gently guided our hearts into the Throne Room of God.
My tradition of worship is liturgical in nature, and as such, every year on Good Friday, the altar is stripped bare, the vestments are removed, and the sanctuary crosses are covered in gauzy black veils. The service ends in silence. Yesterday, at the end of such a service, the priests and deacons walked off camera and dimmed the lights so that we could only barely make out the wooden altar and coal-black shape of a cross behind it. As intended, the gravity of the crucifixion suddenly hit me as I watched the screen in silence…
When my husband leaned forward to exit the Zoom meeting, suddenly I felt the need to pause. “Wait!” I asked abruptly. Graciously he leaned back into the couch as I sat, knees curled into my chest, staring at the grey and black on the screen. I felt the somber weight of evil as my mind ensconced itself in visions of Christ bleeding on a crude cross silhouetted against a roiling sky that rumbled with the anger of God. When my heart felt too full of darkness, I finally nodded at my husband, and he leaned forward and exited the screenshare as I stared glazy-eyed at the empty screen. But as the lid of the laptop met the keyboard, a flash of color invaded my vision and a sensation of energy rushed through me: a fuchsia pink and golden yellow bowl of flowers burst through my senses as it appeared from its hiding spot behind the laptop. I startled.
For a moment, I had forgotten what color was – I had forgotten beauty and its all-encompassing grip on our senses – I had forgotten everything except the darkness of death and the curse we brought upon ourselves at the Garden. But when the flowers appeared and broke my reverie, suddenly I saw the Holy City, and, like the blinding flash of lightning upon a night-bourne sea, the Resurrection burst upon me in radiance, and I knew in my heart of hearts that victory was already upon me. I stared at those flowers as if they were a figment of my imagination – as if nothing that beautiful could arise after the death of Christ. But it had. And the Creator was glorified by his creations: those flowers sang the victory song – they bloomed in glad cheer and defied the crucifixion of our Creator.
When I purchased those flowers 5 days ago for Easter week – I arranged them in hope – believing that goodness reigned over evil, and light defeated the dark. But I had no idea that their light would accost me with such power in a moment pulsing in what seemed like fathomless dark. But death is not fathomless at all – the God of mathematics created the fathom, and He is not overcome by those who defy it. Dissection, mutilation, and dismemberment of beauty might be a part of our reality, but beauty does not change its nature. It remains. And our God stands over it with a sword and scepter. Those who defy the beauty and goodness of our God do just that; they defy something they cannot truly deny.
Though the black gauze on the altar cross shrouded its shape, its shape nevertheless showed through. And whatever part of the crucified life we see in our every day lives, those contours of the cross remain. Victory has already been won. My flowers were still singing, two thousand years later, and they sit in their bowl of water serenading me with the hope of a beauty beyond our realization. Tomorrow, I will celebrate alongside my flowers. Today, my heart waits in vigil – knowing the truth and reveling in its beauty. I think that now I’m ready to burst forth in song on Easter Day. Hosanna to God in the highest!
