Approaching Easter

I recently conducted a graveside service as a favor to a family in Knoxville.  It was an odd feeling, three weeks before Easter, pulling the white Easter stole out of the back of the wardrobe in my office to take with me to the cemetery.  In talking with mentors and peers, I have learned that many Presbyterian pastors do not wear their robe when conducting the graveside portion of a funeral service.  I feel, however, that some kind of liturgical vestment is appropriate for those occasions, so I simply wear my white stole over my suit.

We wear white at funerals as a reminder of the resurrection hope that comes with Easter.  Even at the graveside, where most people are dressed in black, the white liturgical vestments serve as a reminder that we do not grieve as those who have no hope.  We are the children of light, who know that while we grieve death, we trust in the Good News of Jesus’ resurrection and the promise that in our baptism, the resurrection he experienced we too will know.

I noticed as I pulled my stole out of the car, however, that there was a small brown stain toward the bottom, probably from wearing it to other gravesides in the past several months.  Initially I thought about trying to get some water and wash the brown streak off, but there was something about that stain that seemed to ring true in that moment of loss.

Many of us enter Easter in a similar form to my white stole.  We are a little dirty, grief and pain fresh on our hearts.  We wear stains of betrayal and heartache, failures both personal and professional, memories we cannot let go of, secrets we cannot tell.  The Good News of the Gospel comes to us anew each year as the flowers bloom and the trees burst forth in color.  And we may feel that we are staggering into the sanctuary with dirt-stained knees, looking less than pure on this holiest of Christian days.

The Gospel, though, meets us where we are.  The news of Christ’s resurrection is not a festival devoid of human struggle and pain.  The Good News of Christ’s resurrection is that God has gotten in the dirt with us, has experienced the fullness of human life and even death.  Death cannot hold him, however, and when he steps out of the tomb, we remember that life and not death is the final victor.  Maybe we will even find a small smear of dirt on his dazzling white robe, a reminder that Jesus is still with us at the graves of those we love, at the hospital bed with bed pans and IV bags, in the midst of hunger and situations of violence, in our bedrooms and living rooms.  Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift!

Translation:

Lamb of god,
who takest away the sins of the world,
grant them rest

Lamb of god,
who takest away the sins of the world,
grant them rest everlasting.

Light eternal shine upon them. O Lord
in the company of thy Saints forever
for thou art merciful.

Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.

Alleluia. Amen.