Last Lenten Reflection

Normally, Easter and Passover fall right next to each other. In theory, Easter is supposed to be the Sunday after Passover. But instead of simply deciding that Easter would be the Sunday after 14 Nisan, they came up with a convoluted way of figuring out the vernal equinox in such a way that there are actually two different Easters - one for the Orthodox in the East, and the other for Christians in the West.

I've touched on it before, but why I like the usual confluence of these holidays is that there is a familiar undercurrent in the underlying meaning of each.

In order to get to Passover - which begins the deliverance of the Israelites from pharaoh when death passes over their households, the people of Israel had to pass through a tremendous period of trial. In the time of Abraham, God had repeatedly asserted he would make of him a great nation - but Abraham and Sarah seemed to scratch out a difficult life until getting to Canaan, and even after. At one point, God tests Abraham, asking him to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice.

Although things eventually seemed to go well in the family (after a difficult time in which Jacob thought he'd lost a son), they ended up in Egypt, and ended up as slaves with a heavier and heavier burden. Just gazing at the opulence of the ancient architecture of Bronze age Egypt should convince just about anyone that Egyptian slavery was a hard life.

To get to the Exodus, and the road back to Canaan, you have to pass through the slavery. Similarly, to get to the resurrection on Easter Sunday (I go to the vigil), you've got to pass through the Passion on Friday. The glory of the stone rolled away is only as apparent as it is because of its contrast with centurions wailing on rusty nails through the hands of Jesus.

I think... I hope, the joy of Heaven is a lot like that. The Buddha said, "Life is suffering," and while I might choose less gloomy words to describe the journey, there is no question the signposts along the roadway, the ones we notice, mark off the times of either great pain or blessed happiness.

My wife faces Easter this year for the first time with the loss of her sister. My brother in law faces his wedding anniversary for the first time without a bride to celebrate it with. These two challenges are different in some ways; Easter, after all is our celebration of the possibilities of new life, even after death. A wedding anniversary is a time to take stock of the life a couple are having in this life.

But perhaps the hope in both these looming bittersweet commemorations is not so far apart. My brother in law has two grown children, who are beginning to take their place in the world and live out their dreams. Against all odds, life flourishes after life, even in this world. My brother in law has changed his world all around, learning a new trade that fits him like a glove, learning to make fine furniture and do cabinetry.

And Easter brings the hope of life after life, too. There's no Earthly reason to believe in it, of course. Every thread of our being appears to be connected to a biological reality. We can talk because our vocal chords, connected to our brains, cause sound vibrations we are conditioned to understand. Our fingers type out written representations of these sounds. Our eyes collect photons from these written representations, and our trained minds interpret the arrangement of colours and shapes in meanings we are also conditioned to understand.

If we are that physical, what reason do we have to believe there's any kind of unseen permanence that goes along with it? The reason is insane hope, hope that the many layers and mysteries of reason still hide the wonderful, the implausible... the miracle!

When Jesus tells Martha in John 11 that Lazarus will rise again, she recites, as if reciting a rote formula, that yes, she knows her brother will rise again on the last day. He has to say to her, No! That's not what I mean! I am the resurrection. I am the life. This will happen right here. Right now!

You don't need to look solely to the New Testament to see this miracle straining to burst forth. In the second book of Kings, the prophet Elisha meets a woman whom he wants to see blessed. He tells her she will be blessed with a son. Sometime later, the son dies, and she bitterly says in her anguish, "Did I ask my lord for a son?" he tells her to bring his staff back to the boy and lay it on him. She insists he come personally.

Elisha does indeed restore the boy's life. But the woman missed the point - this miracle was meant for her. That is why Elisha offered only his staff at first. It was God's intent to restore this boy. Elisha wasn't the miracle worker. God was - and he was going to grant this miracle no matter what this woman did.

Miracles are meant for us. We haven't earned them. We aren't racking up brownie points that are going to get them for us. These and even the many everyday little miracles come to us because God loves us, and God wishes them for us.

This morning, when I woke up, there was an angel standing beside me. Sounds strange to say, but that is what I saw. I shook my head in disbelief, tried to focus my eyes, but the silent tall figure stayed there. This image only lasted for a couple of seconds as wakefulness, rationality bathed me. But for a couple of seconds it was real for me, and then it faded away. It was still a quiet comfort.

At Mass this morning, I thought to myself, well, I've been doing fairly well in Lent, fighting off gluttony. Maybe I'm starting to get into the good books! But then I realized that I've still mostly not reshaped my behaviour. I'm still lazy, I still get cranky - the small improvements are nothing that would impress God.

That is when I realized it. Miracles are just love, given freely, a gift for which there is no payment, no brownie points. God gives us those precious moments, not just the supernatural ones but the everyday happinesses of life, because he loves us. Not because we're his favourites. Not because we're out of the doghouse. But because God loves us. Loves us like we love our own children, parents, and family.

My sister in law is fine. She is far closer to this goodness than we are here. The little signs, the small hints that she looks over us still, those have started to fade. But I think it may be because now, so immersed in God's love, she has little time to do anything but sing for joy, bathed in a light unlike any we can now know.