I’m a retired pastor. I’ve spent many years preaching Easter sermons. I’m allowed to say this: I sometimes wonder if we try to be too profoundly theological at Easter, when Easter is really – and simply – a time of wonder and questions, laced with a goodly bit of celebration and hope, even in the midst of and in spite of all those Good Fridays out there.
It’s that “simple”.
All that being said, I’ve managed to create a less-than-simple poem! Ah, irony!
A copy of the poem with better formatting is available as a PDF document.
We need no poems for Easter. Easter just is. Exploding in light and wonder. No words needed, no words contain. No one really understands it, anyway. What really came bursting, questing, leaping from the tomb? What did the women really see? More than a beloved: something that made sense in all that jumble of things, pebbles scattered, sharp and alone. Something that put things together. Something of “Yes! That’s it!” Something that made them live, tears still damp on their faces, burial spices still scenting their hands. Something that made them run and tell the others, who, predictably, did not believe. But they ran to tell anyway. In the midst of all the chaos, a comprehension, a “Yes!” We need no poems for Easter. It’s intuitively obvious. Light bursting forth, with more questions than answers, but heartfelt energy that pricks at the lethargy of grief and endings. Whatever it is, something more. A tangled web of unknowing and questions, bright and shining though, as only something of joy and hope can be. A web that connects us – to life, to each other, to all that is holy, to all Creation. The story isn’t over, the work not yet done. There are still more tears to be shed, more confessions to be made. Pilate’s army does not “go gentle into that good night.” * Easter comes anyway, with power of its own, scoops us up into its bright and shimmering arms, scatters us like so many rose petals: “Now then, go!”. And somehow, when we’re at our best, we do. We let ourselves be flung out into the world with what courage we can muster, and what love we can embody, daring to believe another world is possible, daring to believe we can participate in its creation. No, we don’t need any poems for Easter. Easter is so simple, after all. __________ * Dylan Thomas