Worship

Resurrection Day in the Time of Covid

by Jan Bradley
06/07/22
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I began to wonder this morning if perhaps we as Christ's church, His Body, have become distracted over the years by all the tradition and panoply and pagan rituals that have become tied to His Resurrection Day, to where we are celebrating Easter and not the real thing, which was Jesus's resurrection from death. We buy new clothes to wear to church, we boil eggs and dye them to be hidden for children to find, we trot out the Easter Bunny with his basket, we eat a huge amount of food (not necessarily a bad thing) and consume chocolate candy by the pound. None of this really has anything to do with Jesus rising from the dead on the third day as He predicted.

I just wonder, here on this Palm Sunday, if perhaps God has taken all that extraneous stuff away from us this year (2020) so we will focus on what is really important and real in Resurrection Day and not be distracted by all the other. This year we are unable to attend church in person, to be seen in our Easter finery, unable to have massive Easter egg hunts and other events with large crowds, and unable (maybe unwise) to have large family gatherings for feasting purposes because of the danger of contagion from COVID-19.

I'm beginning to think God has isolated us in our homes with only online church services to force our sinful, human minds to focus on the reality of Jesus and His death for our sins and His triumphant return from death on our behalf. He has caused all the frivolous, unnecessary, yes even pagan, details to fall away so that Jesus stands before us in His glory and grace for us to worship in sincerity and truth. I think we need to treasure this time as a period in our lives when we are drawn back toward God and away from the distractions of the world, and not grieve what we are prevented from doing this year at this holiday.