And the blog rose again on Easter day...
Every year, the Place community gathers, at six am, on the beach at Gyro Park for an Easter sunrise service. The previous night, some enterprising and handy soul goes out, fashions three crosses out of driftwood and erects them by the water. In the dark of dawn folks rise from their beds and make their weary way to Caddy Bay. It is, as our pastor Randy likes to say, the high point of the year for this bunch of believers. It certainly is for this believer.
This was my fourth sunrise service, and the first in which the weather wasn't ideal. It was raining when I woke, which led me to think that the weather would separate the sheep from the goats, and that there'd only be a couple dozen of us hardcores huddled around a fire, guitar and upright bass getting wet. But driving in to the parking lot, seeing it so full, I realized that perhaps I am the only weather wimp in Victoria, and that no one else was fazed by a little rain. Either that or folks reason like my friend Stephanie, who said "After what Jesus did for us, we can pretty well get up early & be out in the rain."
My friend Christina and I shared my beach mat with Jo, she and I huddled under a blanket (yes hon--that blanket.) Our band that morning consists of acoustic guitar, upright bass, accordion, two female singers and a male lead. As we sang through Easter favourites--Here By The Water, You Laid Aside Your Majesty, My Jesus I Love Thee--I recalled sunrise services past. The first one, in 2002, when a bunch of friends and I had slept on the beach the night before, and the full moon had shone on us and the on the ocean. The next year, as I read a meditation (the morning includes poetic and liturgical elements as well as singing) the wisps of clouds above the rising sun--I swear this is true--formed the shape of a cross. A picture of this appeared on the cover of the newspaper the next day. I thought, How cool is this, how great to be living in Victoria and be worshipping with such fine, fine people.
Easter's theme of new life, new beginnings, holds a whole new meaning for me this year. It first struck me with great force on Friday night, when I attended, as I do each year, the Tenebrae choral service at St John the Divine, a long piece of liturgy in which a lenghty reading from Lamentations culminates in the gorgeous, heartbreaking choral rendition of Psalm 51, Miserere mei, Deus as arranged by Gregorio Allegri. The first time I heard the piece was at that service in 2002, just a few months after the demise of my ill-fated, youthful first marriage. All through Lent I'd been wrestling with Psalm 51, and that night it finally, memorably, beautifully broke my heart. Both the psalm and the choral piece have been steady companions since then, and yet, familiar as they are, again they utterly broke my heart this Friday. No matter how familiar to me the singing is, it takes on new depths when sung live by breathing, moving people, as opposed to echoing out of my stereo speakers. And, as I read along in my NKJV, I heard verse 10 with new ears: "Create in me a clean heart, O God." I heard my own cry, from Lent of 2002 and onward, for God to wipe clean the slate of my heart, sweep away the guilt and brokenness and shame of a broken marriage, and give me another chance. And clear as day I could see that God has heard, and answered, that prayer. And I cried, cried hard, for the beauty of the music, for the greatness of my God and my own smallness, for my immense and overwhelming gratitude--and for the life-giving love of my beloved. After the choir goes quiet, the order or service leaflet gives these instructions: Silence is kept. A loud noise indicates the earthquake and the tombs being broken. All people depart in silence and disorder. I've always loved that last line, silence and disorder. On Friday, stepping out onto the street, I was resolutely looking towards the lights of Sunday morning. (Oh, that, and singing Avril Lavigne with Matthew on the way to the pub.)
Back to the beach. The sun didn't make a spectacular piercing through the clouds, like Thomas' finger, to prod at our unbelief, but it did glow from behind the clouds, as Randy led us in the glorious rousing cry, He is risen! He is risen indeed! The next song we did was Shout To The Lord. This was the song my ex and I had chosen to have at our wedding, and I have seldom since then heard or sang it without pain, be it sharp or dull. This morning, I sang it happily and confidently, hitting the high notes as I never have. That old thing, that ragged animal, is dead, done, buried. A new thing has been called forth, and has risen from the ashes. He is risen. Indeed.
Memorably, a few years ago, Matthew concluded his Easter meditation thusly: If the Lord is risen, then let's hang out. This is what we've been recalling, and doing, ever since, at the end of the sunrise service. We greet each other saying, He is risen! He is risen indeed! (I rather think we should do this everyday.) We feast on hot chocolate and cinnamon buns. We make our way to breakfast potlucks. Later in the morning, we nap.
We believe in the promise. We look forward to new life.
