Sorrowing in a season of joy

I’ve been reading Luke 24:13-35 this week, the first post-Resurrection appearance of Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Though eagerly gathered to hear the miraculous news that was being reported, the disciples were nevertheless terrified when that good news appeared in front of them in all-too-real flesh. What seemed conceivable at one remove — perhaps it had been a ghost on the road to Emmaus — was suddenly, shatteringly, staggeringly present.

We can sympathize with the disciples' confusion, as we struggle to reconcile joy and sorrow, certainty and uncertainty, to experience Easter as unalloyed joy. Those who watched their beloved teacher be crucified and the women at the cross experienced great trauma as they witnessed him suffer injustice. When resurrection came, their joy was immeasurable precisely because it was attached to the trauma. And so, the joy was not a simple thing, like seeing flowers bloom in the spring. It was a joy attached to so many other emotions, a feeling so complex we likely do not have a word for it in the English language.

This is Easter joy.
It does not exclude the suffering world.
It does not silence the witness of injustice.
It does not simplify the problems of evil and suffering to an easy answer.

Easter joy is a symphony of hard, complex emotions.
In his book, Into the Silent Land, Martin Laird points out that when we go in search of peace in prayer, we often find what feels like chaos. But, he says, it is precisely in this meeting of confusion and peace that healing happens. Not by erasing our pain, but by opening a path for grace. The resurrection did not erase the pain of Christ’s passion, nor does it take away our own troubles. I find in this gospel a space where those of us who are rubbed raw by sorrow in the midst of joy, who are simultaneously mourning and rejoicing, can reach for healing. Stretch out your hands to me, says Jesus, touch my wounds and find a glimmer of peace. For I am here with you, wounded and yet whole, to the end of time.

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation