The Village ILWIDIot

Walt Wiltschek

“Are you the only one in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard what’s happened during the last few days?” —Luke 24:18b, MSG

A cheery voice on the radio extolled the brilliant dawn of Easter morning and the joy of the day.

Meanwhile, rain pounded on my windshield as I sat in the church parking lot, glancing up at heavy, gray skies.

The world feels kind of like that right now, doesn’t it?

Once I made it inside the Pennsylvania church where I was attending Easter worship and shook off my umbrella, I greeted some friends and took my seat. I was glad to be there, but I confess my spirit wasn’t soaring the way it should on Easter. My mother was in the hospital, seismic world events were spinning out of control, and the church was carrying burdens of its own.

And then the hymn came. Not one of the familiar, well-worn Easter strains, but something fresh—at least to me. It comes from our hymnal, but it wasn’t etched in my memory like the others. Titled “Christ has arisen,” it comes from the African church, originally in Swahili. Its lilting, unbridled tune and hopeful words—especially as performed by the congregation’s band—shook me out of my doldrums.

“For our Redeemer burst from the tomb, Even from death, dispelling its gloom,” the lyrics proclaimed, in part. The young man playing the hand drums even shouted out an emphatic “Yeah!” at the end.

It struck me that while we take the resurrection of Easter as common knowledge now, for those living it in real time, most of them still didn’t know the news that Easter morning. The Emmaus Road story, for example, spotlights two disciples still downcast over all that had happened that weekend. For others, the news likely took even longer to ripple out.

Even then, and even after the Pentecost that followed, the Christians of the early church had some very difficult times and dark days to face in their first-century reality. But they had something else to carry with them alongside the weightiness of their world.

Sometimes that is the work of the church: to carry joy and gloom, light and darkness, together, letting one redeem the other and tending the flame of faith until it does.

By the time I left the sanctuary, the skies were still overcast, but the rain had stopped. Life is full of little resurrections.