journeys-page

Normal Easter is just a memory this year. So there is grieving going on about Easter as it could have been; Easter as is should be. Normally, for me Holy Week would include a Wednesday night confirmation class road trip to the Seward UMC for their annual Living Last Supper presentation. I’ve hardly missed a year since we were pastors there, (1997-2002). Jesus and the boys placed you dramatically in the room where it happened. Normally, Thursday evening was Maundy Thursday worship with communion. Friday evening was a Good Friday Tennabrae service of light and darkness. In GI, both of those services were shared with First Faith UMC rotating back and forth between their place and our place. In Ainsworth, Seward, Beatrice and Doniphan Holy Saturday meant a community wide Easter Egg Hunt. Normally, Easter Sunday began with Sunrise worship. Then regular Easter worship would be packed with whole families filling the pews. Family after family had promised Grandma they’d be there all dressed, pressed and polished at her church for Easter worship. Of course Grandma had blackmailed her family into coming to church or there would be no Easter dinner! It is a christian salmon returning to their home stream kind of thing. Normally, there was something different about preaching to a packed house on Easter. My heart would try to jump out of my chest I’d get so excited! Normally, at Trinity, the annual Easter singing of “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” with the full chancel choir behind you with extra brass instruments and the organ cranked up to full capacity was a soul filling experience. It made water escape from my eyes uncontrollably. Normally, I liked to have the kids race around the sanctuary during children’s time. I’d make them raise their hands and promise not to hit their heads on the corners of the pews, and I’d talk about the foot race between Peter and John on that first Easter morning. It was a worship celebration like no other. Normally, in my family, the Karges preachers (four of us right now) would crash for a glorious Easter Sunday afternoon nap. Then we’d gather at Mom’s place in Lincoln for our own family Easter feast and Easter egg hunt for the little ones after supper. Normally, Mom would make deviled eggs, her fruit pizza, Grandma’s pineapple casserole, green bean casserole and ham in some form. Sister-in-law Dianne would make her crescent rolls and bring her Dad’s homemade orange marmalade. The new normal of Easter is live-streamed worship videoed in an empty sanctuary. The scripture and the message are the normal ones. But now, everyone stays home and watches from their living rooms. This year, Seward UMC streams last year’s video of the Living Last Supper. Maundy Thursday worship is live-streamed from our Bishop Rueben Saenz in Topeka. Good Friday is live-streamed from First Faith UMC’s webpage. Last week, we had a drive-by family Easter Event where we handed Easter packets to folks through their car windows. We also handed out palm leaves after church on Palm Sunday in a drive-by car parade. The Saturday before Easter Trinity will distribute 750 boxes of food from Heartland food bank at Fonner Park. This year, we’re talking about doing a Zoom call with my family including Karges grandkids in Nebraska, North Carolina and California. In the end, normal is more about the past than the present; more about our comfort level, our desire to not be afraid of an unknown future. The good thing is that God is, and has never been, normal. And next year at Easter, we’ll be talking about the new virtual/electronic normal that connects us in ways we’d never dreamed of to folks all around the world. Grace & Peace, Rev. Kelly