Last Easter I Was Robbed

By Tracey Dann

Last Easter I was robbed. I have small children. Easter began the usual way, with family, innumerable chocolate bunnies, pastel hair ribbons, and whining about the necessity of a necktie. Far from home, we ended up in an unfamiliar church. I thought it made no difference. As it turns out, not all services are created equal.

I glanced down at the opening words of the church bulletin, a quote from John Updike that began, “Religion enables us to ignore nothingness.” My stomach fell. I recognized the feeling; it was as if I had taken a late night shortcut down a dark alley and just spotted movement out of the corner of my eye. Unfortunately, we were trapped in the pew by the processing choir.

On the outside, this looked like an Easter service. There was singing. A pastor spoke. Nicely dressed people were sitting in pews. But an hour and fifteen minutes later, no one mentioned the crucifixion of Christ. The hymns described with great eloquence how wonderful we feel on Easter morning. The sermon was an impressive list of all the ways the church had contributed to the community that year. The confessional was a responsive poem written by one of the clergy. It included lines like, “We hear the voice of Christ in the stillness of a clear night, in the way our friends call our name, and in a song that brings tears to our eyes.” A far better soft drink advertisement than a proclamation of faith, I half expected the reading to end with a logo and the slogan “Jesus: the taste of a new generation.” The pastor referred only once to Christ’s “journey to the cross.” But never in this anesthetized version of faith did any hymn, reading, or verse mention Christ’s bitter suffering and death.

I am not sadistic. I do not revel in the suffering of others. I rejoice in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross because the cross is that pivotal point in history where Christ met me, a poor miserable sinner. It was on the cross that His grace poured out for all of mankind. The joy in Christ’s resurrection comes as a direct response to the blood He shed for my redemption. Without Christ’s suffering and death, an empty tomb is simply empty.

Needless to say, we will be attending Easter services at our home church this year.

My children, like most children, are very good at identifying elephants, particularly if that elephant is sitting in a room with them. There was a brief lull about halfway through the Easter sermon that morning. It was during this moment of quiet reflection my fiveyear-old son turned to me and, announcing my thoughts to the group, proclaimed “What is he talking about?” I was proud of my son for daring to be Lutheran, in fact, too proud to scold him for shouting in church. I simply said, “I don’t know, son, but today Christ is risen!” And he responded “He is risen, indeed!”

Tracey Dann is a youth leader and mom who attends Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Smithfield, Rhode Island.