The pandemic has given us horrific news about too many deaths around the world. Although death is sure for all, we were not so regularly reminded of it in comparison to these times.
Alongside the many deaths, there were births taking place. But due to the restriction in a social gathering, the news of birth hardly spread. Or meeting the newly born wasn’t appreciated as one could be a potential carrier of the deadly virus. Alongside the birth and death phenomenon, Christians all over the world celebrate Easter every year marking the victory over death by Jesus Christ. Jesus conquered death by dying and being resurrected on the third day. Easter celebrates the resurrection of Christ. God the Father raised Jesus from the dead. And He is to die no more. Easter celebrates that hope that we too will one day be resurrected.
But is the resurrection only related to the birth and death phenomenon? One can relate to it in the events that are happening around us, the process we undergo to become people we want to be, and in the mindset, we employ to comprehend the workings of the world. Resurrection is not a stage that comes immediately as and when one wants. It is a stage that follows after the amount of pain, suffering, and rejection one has experienced. So there is a stage where you feel low and upset but in all these times the Lord is a sure guide. As He makes use of these hard times too to resurrect you into apparently a mature human being. So one as a pilgrim on the earth has to navigate oneself, embrace challenges, and overcome them with courage. There is no giving up. Why? Because although sounds a bit selfish, there is something great coming your way. Greater than one can imagine.
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Sometimes when we suffer pain and rejection we get stuck to them. Pope Francis says, “True love does not pay attention to the evil it suffers. It rejoices in doing good.” We are not able to see beyond or through them. We aren’t able to offer them willingly as a sacrifice to the Lord, which would be the satisfactory thing to do. After having offered our pain and hurt to the Lord, He then takes over our lives. He becomes our sailor. No matter whether the storm is rough or not He sails it well for us. And we can be assured of it. Pope Francis reminds us that the storm is a reminder that we are frail beings and we need to go to the Lord quite often than we actually do.
Thereafter, there comes a stage where we ought to bury ourselves just like Jesus was buried. We ought to remain silent and inactive allowing the God of our lives to take control. Aren’t we grappled with queries enough and more? Why not offer them up into the hands of the Lord and wait for Him to act in His own time? We surely cannot understand His time, because these are constructs made by us to make sense of the world.
Remaining buried gives us the sense that we are totally dependent on God for our lives. Divine Providence is a concept that was explored quite often by the saints. That doesn’t mean that the saints remained inactive and pushed the responsibility on God to fend for their needs.
It means that the saints truly believed that God will provide in the time of one’s need. There is a lot of hard work that has gone by from the saints' part. And God definitely in His providence gave them the grace to sustain despite various atrocities, suffering, and rejection. Thus, remaining buried offers us the time to become resilient to the hard times to come in the near future.
Resurrection is the stage of success after the hard innings. Although resurrection is the event that needs to be celebrated all through the year, we restrict it to a particular time period reminding us that life is a cycle or amalgamation of suffering, pain, victory, success, failure, anxiety, and a lot more.
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Resurrection is definitely a part of our lives, giving us hope to live. To live a life worthy of our calling, irrespective of what strata of society one belongs to. All of us have been called by God and given a purpose to be fulfilled only we need to recognize it and work towards achieving it. The coronavirus pandemic has left us all a bit shattered but Easter is our hope. We now need to learn to look towards that hope and work towards it day in and day out.
Everything we want to do and achieve in our life must be to glorify God. He should be our prime focus. If one is studying and there is undoubtedly a lot of hard work involved one must offer it to the Lord and endure it to glorify God through it. There is no shortcut to life. If one takes a shortcut, there will be another shortcut that will end the shortcut one has taken.
Let the glory come after the Good Friday of our lives. One can enjoy the fruit of one’s pain only if one has undergone the pain with genuineness and authenticity. Only enjoying the fruit without having undergone the pain leads to dissatisfaction and emptiness. Therefore, let Easter Hope be the aim of our lives.
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