Blog on Joyful Sorrow

Joyful Embrace

What a relief when Lent is over and Easter arrives. After the ardour of a long and trying Lent, we fall joyful into the arms of Easter. Love’s exchange at the cross on Good Friday (refer: Good Friday Exchange) completes with the Resurrection on Easter day. In Jesus God proves life transitions from death.

The promise of life keeps us going especially in dark times. It is the promise of good coming from bad that pulls us back from despair’s precipice. At least that is my prayer for Saskatchewan’s Humboldt Bronco’s hockey team and their grieving families (refer: 14 victims of Humboldt Broncos bus crash identified | CBC News).

Horror Displaced

In a garden cemetery after the horror of the cross Mary Magdalene teeters on despair’s brink (refer: John 20:3-16). With brimming tears she pleads with a man she mistakes for a gardener to tell where he has displaced her lord’s entombed body. Where is Jesus? His body is all she has left.

A piercing grief blinds Mary to the identity of the man before her, she cannot see clear. But from a void only he can bridge Jesus calls her name… “Mary.”

At the sound of his beloved voice does she shut her eyes in disbelief, frozen for a moment on a narrow ledge between despair and hope, sorrow and joy? Will her life change for better or worse once she opens them?

Joyfully Uncontained

Easter cannot be contained.

Compelled to share the grace experienced in a cemetery garden Mary runs to tell others so they, too, might find release from the agony of death’s defeat.

This week as I sit beside my mother on an examination room chair I wonder about Mary’s garden experience. Intense and on edge I lean forward, my gaze locks to the doctor’s face as he considers the notes on his computer screen. I try to gauge nuanced changes in his serious and pensive expression. He is taking his time digesting the results of my mother’s second chest X-ray.

At eighty-eight my mother is willing to accept the prognosis. She carries a quiet gratitude for a good life long-lived. But no one welcomes the prospect of a last journey where the only certainty is a challenging end. It’s not what Jesus wanted. It’s not what the Humboldt hockey team wanted. It’s not what Mum and I want.

As a retired nurse Mum spent years bringing comfort and a sense of security to pain wracked and fearful patients. I heard often enough, “When a patient has confidence in the caregiver they heal better.” When we know someone cares fear and stress diminish.

As we wait for the doctor’s verdict my wish for Mum is no less. Once she reaches her life’s threshold the prayer of my heart is for an easy pain-free passing, gentle and filled with grace.

What Easter message will the doctor deliver?

To be continued…