I remember the year when I was not ready for Easter. That was the year Easter arrived the weekend after our wrongful conviction in a Qatar court. I had many questions: “What were we convicted for? How long will the appeals process take? Are the boys okay with my parents? How much longer?”
“How will I celebrate Easter?” was not one of the questions.
Separated from family, church, home, and friends, I worried about the future and counted the minutes of each day. Instead of planning activities for my kids, singing songs of “He’s alive!”, or waving leaves and hiding eggs, I found myself empty handed that year, surprised by an Easter I had not prepared to celebrate.
I barely noticed.
Some friends stopped by with communion and resurrection songs. I felt embarrassed by our bare apartment, by our lack of enthusiasm, by my t-shirt and hand me down skirt.
I had not arrived at Easter yet.
I was still on Good Friday.
I needed the Jesus who stumbles with his cross, who walks in the dark, who sits in the awful silence and doesn’t get up—the Jesus with questions.
I needed “God with us”, no longer in a manger but on the cross— with us in everything, in all of it—
in wrongful convictions,
in unjust courts,
in families apart,
with us in racism, deception, greed, and conflict,
in loneliness and disease,
in hatred and violence and unrest and unknowns,
in all the evil that smothers life
With us. So near us —that it killed Him.
One day, we shall arrive at Easter. We shall celebrate that dramatic absence with shouts of “He is not here, he is risen!”
Other days, we may just want him here, here where we are.
And that is what Good Friday whispers.
“I am here—fully.”
God. With us.