God.

We’re used to Easter mornings that are full of music and breakfast and baskets and celebration. In fact, we have come to believe that Easter isn’t really Easter without all of that happiness and noise.

So when we get to an Easter Sunday morning and we can’t get together, it feels like it isn’t really Easter, that we aren’t really Christians.

Forgetting that in many parts of the world, Easter doesn’t mean chocolate and new suits and pageantry. And forgetting that often, the pageantry and chocolate and new suits didn’t mean you.

In this time where everything is disrupted, we’re thinking about all our habits, about our expectations, about our routines. We can’t do what we usually do. And we feel lost.

But God, I’m pretty sure that you aren’t disappointed that we don’t have trumpets.

I’m pretty sure that you aren’t missing the pageantry and new suits.

I’m guessing that all along, you didn’t care about all that as much as we did.

Could you help us sort out how to love you with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength when we can’t put it into singing together or sharing a table?

Could you help us accept that you are honored when we whisper “help” with the little breath we can gather, the edges of our attention after being together all the time, the last of our energy after a long shift?

Could you give us the willingness to set our minds and hearts on things that matter to you, and the clarity to know what that means?

Could you, would you, today, give us rest?

I ask on behalf of me and my family and my co-workers and our patients and our community and the communities of each of those who reads these words.

Through You, Christ, our Lord.

Amen.

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Photo credit: Diana Flory

Video version of this prayer is available at A Prayer for Easter 2020.