Waymarks out of Covid - Easter

 Easter! Ascension! Pentecost! A succession of waymarks from where we plot our routes out of Covid towards the  unfolding future. In June when ( or should that be if?) we are finally free, we will be 15 months older. And some of us were old when we went into lockdown for the first time! Here our church congregations tend to be elderly, so much so that this 78 year old is part of the youth group! What I am saying is, “the future of the Church in our rural villages uncertain.” You could be accused of wishful thinking if you imagined it might have any future at all!

Easter is a reminder of the impossible possibility of good news beyond our wildest dreams. In the early dawn of our (Christian)  resurrection faith, the doing this with bread and wine in upper room and around the kitchen table, revealed the risen Lord at the breaking of the bread. In the Easters of 2020 and 2021 some of us have  had parallel experiences - by the wonders of 21st C technology, around Archbishop Justine’s table and sometimes at our own supper tables.

Locked out of our established houses of prayer, dear old St.What’s- his-clogs on the village green, or Whatsernames in city square, we have encountered the risen Lord when walking country roads and city streets and had occasional encounters with one who could be mistaken for a gardener when we came looking for what was lost in those  places where we consider flowers and birds.

Zoomed and streamed services and communion in one kind have taught us the forgotten ability  to see our Lord’s incarnation re-enacted in the drama of a eucharist, in which the congregation’s participation was strictly limited. No inspired - breathe in, breathe out - singing. No sharing the common cup.  But seeing, if only with the eye’s of faith, Christ - this is my body, this is my blood - in the midst. A common enough understanding in Pre-Reformation England, this insight might help us on the next leg of our journey. The sacramental presence of Our Lord, reserved in tabernacle or aumbry in the houses of prayer, in the midst of our communities, may speak once again of God with us, even when church services are infrequent.

The upper room, kitchen table and picnic by the shore appearances of the Risen Lord  gave rise to the Benedictine insight that all guests should be welcomed as if they were Christ. Easter faith encourages us to practice hospitality in our own homes and at church.

Above all the Easter mantra, “We are a resurrection people and alleluia is our song!” requires Christian people and communities to model life in abundance even on our deathbeds! This is divine service! Not divine services, but the service we owe to God, as his loyal servants.


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