If you’re around me enough you’ll soon realize that I love hot weather and I hate the cold. I hate wearing closed-toe shoes and bundling up. Being sensitive to the cold, I start bundling up in the fall. Meanwhile, I enjoy the heat of summer as temperatures hit eighty degrees. And I do not simply enjoy summer; I’m a better me as my spirit is renewed after the long and dreary winter season.
Yesterday, as I was getting ready for work, I grabbed socks out of my sock drawer, and then I wondered, “Is this necessary?” As a groundhog measures the length of winter, could I wear sandals today as a means to reign in the end of winter and the beginning of Spring? Is today the day the glorious trumpets of Heaven ring their horns and winter has no power over me? I thought to myself, “I will make those horns blow and wear my sandals!”
It is no coincidence that we celebrate the resurrection of Christ in the spring. Easter is celebrated as flowers begin to bloom, leaves begin to grow, and socks begin their annual sabbatical. Spring shows that resurrection is not simply for Jesus, but is part of how God works, as the promise of resurrection from death to life is shown to us in every spring. As Martin Luther would say, “Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.”
Resurrection, from death to life is written in the order of the cosmos. Just as God cast a rainbow in the sky as a reminder in the book of Exodus, God reminds us that we do rebound from our low points. While we are coming to the end of the pandemic, I cannot help but think of it as part of God’s natural order of things. Out of pain and tribulation, we are entering a “new normal” as grandparents are able to hug their loved ones again, small businesses are able to slowly open up, and Lord of Life Lutheran will be having three outdoor Easter services if the weather cooperates.
Though we are not at the end of this pandemic, in my job as a pastor I get to see or hear about resurrection nearly every day, as I learn about a new parishioner that is vaccinated, or a parishioner relaxedly visiting a friend. As I wait for my turn in the vaccine line, I get to have small moments of joy as other’s happiness radiates through them.
Spring is here, resurrection is in our midst, and soon the stone will be rolled away and the pandemic will be spoken of with “was” and not “is.”
Witnessing Resurrection,
Pastoral Intern Alec Brock (he/him)