Easter Baskets

I’ve always loved Holy Week.  

When I was a kid, I loved looking for our Easter Baskets. Finding things was one of my favorite games any time of the year (I am a Hufflepuff!), and Easter afforded the magical opportunity to find multitudes of treasure in the form of bright plastic eggs. I liked the chocolate inside of course, but the delight of discovery was just as sweet. The Easter Baskets were the Big Prize of the hunt, and my boundlessly creative parents would somehow find new unexpected hiding locations every year. One particularly memorable Easter when we were at my grandmother’s house, I found a basket IN her grandfather clock! After I hit puberty, I reluctantly relinquished the ritual of egg-hunting to my little sisters (although if given the chance, I would still enthusiastically join any treasure hunt, as evidenced by my love of video games and Escape Rooms).

I also loved the Easter story. I was tapped from an early age to sing for church and threw myself enthusiastically into the music, especially around Easter. If I could make someone (or myself) cry during the Tenebrae Service, I knew I was doing Easter right. The emotion and drama of Christ’s death and resurrection spoke to something in my personality (any Enneagram 4s out there?). It’s a powerful narrative: the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus (“It was my sin that held him there!!”), the moment when Darkness seems to win, and then Good triumphs as Jesus emerges from the tomb Easter morning (“Christ the Lord is risen today!!”). I did more than believe – I internalized, I felt, I experienced. This was The Greatest Story (just a teeny bit ahead of The Lord of the Rings, because I didn’t want to be sacrilegious). I also really loved nature, so the combination of flowers coming back to life at the same time GOD came back to life represented an annual ritual of rebirth – a fresh start, even better than New Year’s! (Sure, my awfulness was why God needed His Son to die horribly in the first place, but yay Jesus is alive, so everything’s good now!). I’m the kind of person who needs time and space for self-reflection, and Holy Week was always the perfect opportunity for a spiritual reset. 

But this year, I don’t want to think about it at all. I recently finished Rescuing Jesus: How People of Color, Women, and Queer Christians are Reclaiming Evangelicalism by Deborah Jian Lee, which tells the stories of Christians who pushed back against their college’s anti-LGBTQ policies, or spoke up for racial justice in churches that didn’t want to hear from people of color, or pursued pastorship despite the fact that *gasp* they were born with a vagina! I was inspired by the people who have paved the way for a more inclusive and loving Christianity, but I could also feel my spirit sinking as the author wrote about how she was hopeful that these trends would continue. The book came out in early 2016, right before 87% of white evangelicals voted for Trump mere weeks after the video came out in which he bragged about sexually assaulting women. 

After this past year, I’m not sure I want anything to do with Christianity. I think of massive, maskless gatherings during a global pandemic (and selling “Jesus Christ, Superspreader” t-shirts, as though hundreds of thousands of families aren’t grieving the loss of a loved one). I remember the cold criticism and lack of empathy for Black communities during the (mostly masked and peaceful) protests last summer. I heard the deafening silence when hundreds of (mostly white) people carrying “Jesus Saves” flags erected a noose in front of the Capitol and tried to kill our congresspeople. I see the words in comments sections of people I know that demean and dehumanize LGBTQ people. I feel the judgemental implications from social media posts that suggest I’m not a “godly woman” because I love my job, and don’t have kids, and share equal decision-making power with my spouse. I’m just now beginning to unpack the psychological effects of hearing for years that I am at my core “totally depraved” and that God would be fine with eternally torturing me if I didn’t follow the right rules or beliefs. 

This Easter, I can’t see Christ because of the Christians. 

The other day, I tripped on an uneven sidewalk while running downhill and landed on my right hand. I didn’t break anything, but I scraped and bruised my hand pretty thoroughly. Since then, I’ve been trying to avoid using that hand so thay it can heal. I’ve been icing it to numb the pain and reduce swelling. I’ve used alcohol to clean the open wounds of any dirt, and I’ve covered them with a band-aid so that the new skin can grow back uninterrupted. 

Right now, I have to approach my faith like my injured hand. Practicing Easter this year feels like trying to rip off a bandaid while the scab is still trying to form, or doing push ups while the flesh is still swollen and tender. To heal, I need to rest and not cause additional stress or aggravation to the healing process. I may need to numb a bit and cover up where the wounds are freshest. I don’t know where Jesus fits into that, and I don’t think I have the mental or spiritual capacity to figure that out right now. Maybe you don’t either, and that’s ok, even if it means not being religious on Easter, or acknowledging the holiday at all. Self-care may mean creating distance instead of forcing yourself to push through a place of pain to meet a certain expectation.  

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I do love finding things. Perhaps if Jesus is anywhere this Easter, he’s in the people the majority of Christians reject, but who have brought so much light to my life. I see Jesus in my pastors, a married couple who take turns preaching and have joyfully officiated the weddings of many same-sex couples in our church. I see him in the small group of people who have been doing music for our recorded services, week after week (no matter where my faith is at, I seem to always find joy in familiar hymns and worship songs). I see him in the gentle, quiet service of my spouse when he cooks and does all the grocery shopping for us. I see him in my nonreligious friends and family, who continually show me love and grace and inspire me with their commitment to calling out injustice. I see him in my friends and family who remain Christian, even when they are constantly criticized because they dare to defend queer folks (or come out themselves). And because I’m really a druid at heart, I see Divine Beauty in the new green reaching out from the tips of the trees. Maybe all of that is God, and maybe it’s just Love. Maybe they’re the same thing.

And having that in my life is better than finding any brightly-colored plastic egg or Easter basket this Holy Week. 

You’re not alone, and you are Loved.