It is Easter, when we celebrate the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. We are surrounded by all of these beautiful flowers.  Not long ago these stems did not feed beautiful buds but were bare.  There are some flowers that were asleep underground awaiting the first signs of spring to come up and blossom.  Spring has a way of bringing things back to life.

For these plants to come to life, they had to go through a time when their mortality was questionable.  For something natural or someone spiritually to come back from a dead place, there has to be a time of grief, a time of bereavement first.  There was much to grieve on the day of Easter before the women came to the tomb.  The disciples including the women had witnessed a horrific sight as they had just sat at the feet of Jesus as he was lifted up on a cross two days before.  They even witnessed the lowest point that he had felt in his life two hours before he died. 

During that time of despair, in reciting psalms, Jesus recited a verse from psalm 22, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  This psalm is called the song of lament, and it was a psalm sung over and over while the Jews were locked in concentration camps in Europe during the second world war. It is a psalm that especially tells of what it feels like to feel forgotten by God.

“My God, My God – why have you forsaken me?”  Have you ever felt that?  I remember feeling like I must have made God mad at me when I was young and got a positive lupus diagnosis. But Jesus felt abandoned — forgotten by the one who says that God’s love is steadfast, unfailing.  God’s love and presence is always there and always benevolent, but it doesn’t always feel unfailing or steadfast to everyone all of the time.

At times it can feel like we aren’t being heard by anyone, and our spirits can feel low. Jesus felt unheard and unseen as he stood on a nail between his feet and lifted himself to get enough air to say that he felt alone.  The women had heard this cry because they were at his feet, at the foot of the cross during the crucifixion.  They probably understood it better than any of the other disciples.  During the whole ordeal, Jesus had not been supported, not even one of his disciples testified for him in any of his trials that brought him to this horrible end. No one defended Jesus when he was being tortured.  Even in his ministry, Jesus had done his best, and no one listened to him in Jerusalem about the kind of peace he wanted to bring to the world.   The women knew all of this.   The women had listened and knew his pain probably better than any others.

On the cross, Jesus knew there would be a resurrection. He knew that God was right there suffering with him. He had told his disciples both things  several times.  There are times that even when we know that the spiritual spring is coming that the spiritual winter just feels overwhelmingly bad.  In truth it is part of the cycle of life.  For many of us and in many ways, we have to die to self spiritually and let go of our egos in order to access the resurrecting power of the next mystical stage in life.

What do you do when someone else feels unheard or unseen by God?  How are you there for them?  On April 9 from noon to four-thirty, you are invited to learn how to talk to and interact with someone who has given up on living.  There is a program at OIT that is put on by Brion Pinkerton for Veteran’s Affairs and KBBH called Collaborating in Care – Ministry and Mental Health. It is a FREE, interactive, community training that is geared toward leaders of faith communities, mental health professionals, and community advocates.  Many of you qualify for more than one of these.  As Quakers, we are all ministers and all expected to lead in our own way.  If you can come, please do.

Looking back at the message, how do we learn from these women who had sat at the feet of Jesus at the cross?  How do we remind them that a resurrection is coming? How do we ask in our times of distress how to let go of ego and hold on to life, because spring does come?  No matter how cold it gets in the winter, no matter how bare the trees look, no matter how brown the grass – spring will come and there will be positive change, there will be grass, there will be flowers, animals will return to be seen.  Healing happens.  Growing happens.  It is a process, and we can trust it.

The resurrection of Christ was a promise Jesus made to all of us.  It is a symbol of better things to come.  Our souls go through many times that might be considered times of fatality as something important in us has to give up its place in our lives.  Spirituality is not a linear line of events.  Life follows a cycle.  Spiritual vitality can come back around for us.  There will always be a time of renewal if we let the old go and accept that things change and allow them to become new. 

Sometimes we want the flower we had last year, but flowers are not made to last forever.  In spring they will return but they will be different than the year before.  Our daffodils in our yard this year went through a change of soil.  What was bright yellow last year was shear white this year – same bulbs, same place, but different flowers.

Still, learn from Jesus. If your spirit is low, let it be where you are.  Like Jesus did, don’t be afraid to feel fully what is happening inside of you.  Jesus could have said, “If I repeat this psalm out loud, they won’t know God is still here when they are feeling all alone and abandoned by God.”  But he did feel abandoned, so he said what he was feeling.  Allowing ourselves to be real about what is going on in our lives and what our feelings truly are, leads to integrity and authenticity. And gets us ready for growth and healing.

I believe that spirit is an eternal optimist.  While we might not feel remembered one minute, we can accept change as it comes to us the next.  It’s a process. No butterfly can keep creeping along on a twig like it used to be as a caterpillar. Transformation is part of life.  We have to let go of the past to be renewed. We can be transformed by listening to our inner Christ who has felt both the sadness of feeling forgotten by God and the elation of the beauty of the garden on the first Easter. Imagine Jesus coming out of the tomb, full of hope, spared from eternal death.  We can learn from this, too. Good comes.  Renewal happens.  Refreshment might mean we have to make changes like the butterfly has to change from its life as a caterpillar.  But our spirits can come out of the caves of life with new perspectives and feelings of connection.

The butterflies flutter to the flowers.  Each time you see a butterfly, remember Jesus’ darkest moment turned into a beautiful resurrection, just like the caterpillar turned into this beautiful insect that adorns our gardens.

Open worship Queries:

• Has there been a time that you felt forgotten by God? 
• Have you had a time when the cycle completed itself, and you found yourself feeling vital or purposeful again?  
• When have you witnessed transformation?