I’m a pastor. You shouldn’t be in church this Easter

I’m a pastor and I’m telling you — this Easter, you should not go to church.

You should know that I love church and I haven’t missed a Sunday morning worship service in 20 years. I find a place to worship when my family goes on vacation. I’ve taken maternity leave three times, but I’ve never missed a Sunday morning worship service. I learned to drive in ‘weather’ when I lived in Boston, so even when this city shuts down for snow — I go to church. I don’t go because I have to. I go because I want to. There’s never a place I’d rather be on Sunday morning. It’s just what I love.

Still — you shouldn’t be sitting in a pew this Easter Sunday morning. Followers of Jesus Christ believe in the sacredness of human life. We don’t honor the gift of life by risking it by going out during a pandemic. We aren’t loving our neighbors if our actions cause them to be infected with a deadly virus. We can’t share the good news of the gospel with folks if they are dead from COVID-19. It wouldn’t be faithful to court death to celebrate resurrection. In fact, it would be blasphemous.

But the good news is, even if you will miss church Sunday morning — and I will — you don’t have to miss Easter.

Because Easter isn’t something you go to see like a Broadway show. And it isn’t some kind of mass hallucination you have to gather with other people to feel. Easter isn’t an experience we produce. Easter IS. It has witnesses, but it doesn’t need them.

In America, many of us have come to identify Easter with its customs. The brass quintet, the thunderous organ, the choir, the cloying scent of lilies, the sight of little girls in smocked dresses and little boys in bow ties clutching Easter baskets. There’s nothing wrong with those things — as long as we understand they are symbols. Signs are meant to point to what is real and holy. They were never meant to replace it.

For Easter all you need is a death-drenched culture and the soul-crushing realization that life doesn’t have to be the way that it is. For Easter, you need an empty place at the heart of yourself that can no longer be filled by poison or numbed by pleasure. For Easter you need a bruised soul — you need to have felt the agony of injustice and unredeemed suffering and separation and decay in a way that leaves a spectacular mark, one you can’t help pressing even though you already know it will hurt.

And then you need to hear the story — of the tomb that should have been filled with the broken tortured flesh of the only one who lived a holy life. A life of healing broken people and feeding hungry people and welcoming strangers and loving enemies. One who taught his followers that giving is better than taking, the server is greater than the one who is served and to pray in secret or not at all. He revealed that God is with the poor, the broken-hearted and the meek. Then he revealed he was the son of God and the long-awaited savior. And then he said that he would die — and that God would raise him up again.

Resurrection is what we call that — a recovery of life through the power of God. And the promise is that Jesus’ resurrection is the first — but not the last or the only. That’s what we celebrate on Easter — a revelation that God has broken the power of evil and death and is drawing all people back into his love.

So you shouldn’t be sitting in a pew Sunday morning. You don’t risk death to celebrate life. Like many other cherished celebrations, we’ll have to wait to do it properly. You can’t have the choir and the trumpets and the lilies and the seersucker, smocked crowds, but you still have the resurrection. And if that doesn’t feel like enough, then maybe you were never celebrating Easter at all.

This story was originally published April 10, 2020 at 9:59 AM with the headline "I’m a pastor. You shouldn’t be in church this Easter."