It’s a New World but the Promise Remains the Same. It All Comes Down to Easter!

So many things have changed in the past month. Life as we knew it might never again be the same. I started making a list of my favorite annual events that have either been postponed or cancelled due to the virus. The Kentucky Derby, postponed until September. The Indy 500, might be run in August. No March Madness. The Masters, postponed until November? The Open, cancelled for 2020. The Stanley Cup playoffs, who knows when or even if? The Olympics, postponed until 2021, how can that be? The Olympics always happen in even numbered years. Concerts at Red Rocks, maybe mid-summer, maybe not at all this year. My list goes on and on.

My list however woke me up in a very important way. Take another look at the events I have listed – they are events that have become “absolutes” throughout my lifetime. Watching the limited coverage of the Masters golf tournament with my father was a right of spring. Then as coverage progressed it became a 4 day ritual, watching rebroadcasts of play on Thursday and Friday when I got home from work and then committing the entire weekend to watching the live coverage. It is still something I look forward to every year. I remember very clearly sitting by the radio every Memorial Day, listening to Chris Economaki broadcast the Indy 500 and then when ABC began television broadcasts of the race I would be glued to the tv screen from start to finish. I always looked forward to it and for me the race marked the beginning of summer. These days I tend to record the race on the DVR so I can speed watch it rather than spending the whole day in front of the tv but it is still an annual event that has a place on my calendar. Shoot, I’ll miss a round of golf before I would miss seeing the start of Indy. Back in the day, the Olympics were staged every four years with both the summer and winter games played in the same year. Again, watching the international athletes compete for bronze, silver and gold took priority over just about anything else going in life. Now it is an every other year happening, alternating between the winter and summer games. Terrie and I spend a good deal of time watching our favorite events during the two weeks the games are held. Again, according to my calendar, if it’s an even numbered year there will be Olympic competition.

Notice a pattern here? These were things in my life that had become “absolutes.) Now, in the span of roughly four short weeks, those absolutes have dissolved and if you are like me you are searching for new absolutes to take their place because you feel lost without them. We find comfort and attachment in absolutes. We rely on those absolutes to be scattered across our calendars to create time stamps that mark our progression through the seasons and through the year in general. So now I am looking for new absolutes and I get frustrated because this whole Covid 19 event seems to eliminate “absolutes.”

It is no coincidence that in the middle of the challenge we are facing the celebration of Easter will happen – just like it does every spring. Never to be cancelled, never to be rescheduled or postponed. Ahh, an “absolute!” A time stamp. A promise we can attach ourselves too. A promise that was issued by God over 2000 years ago and despite all the pandemics, wars, famines, droughts, sin, and other human caused debacles, the promise stands as true and absolute as it did at the beginning of time.

I am not going to go into an in-depth, theological discussion about what happened over the four days composing the event we now celebrate as Easter (includes Maundy Thursday). I am relatively sure you have heard the story of Easter just like you have heard the story of Christmas. What I do hope you will consider is the how the promise of Easter, shall we call it “the ultimate absolute,” “the one time stamp that can never be cancelled or rescheduled,” impacts you individually. It has taken me 66 years and living through the disruption of a pandemic to come to this realization.

I pray you will have a blessed Easter.