The Most Glorious Easter Sunday of My Life
The Most Glorious Easter Sunday of My Life
Mary Magdalene may have been the first to see the Risen Lord Jesus Christ some two thousand years ago, but He came to me this April 12th, 2009 in resurrection truth unsurpassed by any other Easter Sunday in my life. The tomb was Mena, Arkansas. A horrifying tornado struck there Maundy Thursday night, killing and wreaking unimaginable destruction. The Risen Lord, however, has appeared in the people of this little town, especially in the tiny parish of Christ Episcopal Church… a virtual phoenix from the ashes.
I went to bed at 11:30 p.m. Holy Saturday night, exhausted by the emotions of the Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday services, the Great Triduum, the three days concluding with the Easter Sunday Festival Eucharist services. In addition, I had attended Morning Prayer on Thursday, been a lector for that evening, watched and prayed at the Altar of Repose early Good Friday morning, and been the lector for the LONG Genesis 1 passage at the Easter Vigil, for which I had practiced hard. Most of Saturday was spent preparing for my traditional Easter Sunday “Passover leg of lamb” dinner for the family and friends. I was spent. And I wasn’t even one of those first disciples who had witnessed the horror of Jesus’ last week on earth before He rose from the dead! No wonder they couldn’t stay awake in the garden. No wonder they ultimately deserted and hid before the good news arrived from Mary Magdalene and the others. Mena had been in my prayers during Holy Week, but I wasn’t preoccupied with it, because I was living out Holy Week’s intensity in my own beloved church. Easter really had not arrived, as far as I was concerned.
Thomas, the oldest of my three sons and a budding photojournalist who has a passion for jumping into his pickup truck with a chain saw and a camera to help out at any disaster site, had a different vision for a sacred Easter observance. “Come on, you Christians! Love your neighbors as yourselves this Easter!” he chided in an email to friends and me. “Go volunteer in Mena on Easter!” I was ambivalent. And when I’m already fatigued, I’m even more ambivalent. I LOVE the Festival Easter Eucharist at St. Mark’s, Little Rock…The Holy Communion, familiar Scripture readings, glorious music, the “smells and bells”. It is a real spiritual high, and rightly so. I didn’t want to miss any of it. But Thomas’ words were on my mind as I fell into bed late Saturday night.
At 3:00 a.m. Easter morning, I awoke. “Good day for a resurrection,” I thought to myself. “Should I go, Lord?” “Go,” He said. So I got up and laid out my Sunday clothes to celebrate Easter with the good people of Christ Episcopal Church, Mena…and packed my work clothes to help two of my sons and the work crew of twelve they had mustered to caravan down to the stricken town. I figured I would meet up with their “relief crew” after church. My energy was mounting as daylight approached.
At 6:45 a.m., I filled the car with my stuff, grabbed some Easter jelly beans and coffee, gassed up at EZee Mart, and took off with my middle son David in the driver’s seat. The heavens were pouring rain like cats and dogs, but the Holy Spirit was promising the best was yet to come.
David dropped me off at Christ Church, Mena, at 10:00 Easter morning, and the caravan headed over to the state command center to get a work assignment for the most urgent areas hit by the tornado. I was soaking wet from the rain. The church was icy cold with no electricity. The service wasn’t scheduled to start for an hour yet, but there stood Bishop Maze. “Well, you made it after all!” he exclaimed as he hugged me. Then some early-arrived parishioners gave me hot coffee, brewed via a generator one of them had brought. The generator made just enough juice to run the Mr. Coffee and the electric organ! No lights or heat! I changed out of my wet Easter clothes into my work jeans and wool sweaters, attired like most of the others. There were candles and Easter lilies. The sanctuary was swept free from glass and debris, the wind-tossed cross outside the building was propped up for the world to see, and everyone greeted me with Easter kisses and the handshake of peace as they arrived at the church. The service was gloriously, unabashedly joyful. Even the rain subsided a bit as Bishop Maze spoke to us of the proof of our Lord’s resurrection in the midst of personal or collective disaster. “The proof is on our side,” he declared repeatedly. “It is all around us.”
After the service, several widows invited me to lunch at one of the few eateries in Mena that had electricity, a Mexican restaurant. It was full of electric company linesmen in coveralls, volunteers of various kinds, and townspeople. Cheese enchiladas for Easter! Somehow, it tasted as good as lamb. Misery had “passed over” these people. And I pondered: Christ told us to minister to widows and orphans, but here they were sharing the communion of the resurrection with me!
After the last sip of iced tea, I thought I’d better find Thomas, David, and their friends and get down to resurrection “work” of a different nature. It was hard to get to them even though my cell phone and GPS pinpointed their location: National Guardsmen, electrical trucks, detours, debris….it looked like a war zone. The good people of Mena have suffered terribly. Christ Church is located on Church Avenue, along with the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and other churches. Miraculously, the Episcopalians, though damaged by the wind, didn’t seem to sustain as much destruction as their Christian neighbors. My heart is with them all.
When I finally found our “relief crew”, they were cutting down trees and limbs and hauling off debris around an elderly lady’s gas line. We worked that neighborhood and then returned to the command center where kind volunteers fed us and sent us to another storm-ravaged area. The rain resumed. Our efforts seemed like a drop in the bucket of work to be accomplished in Mena. We were muddy, sore, scraped and bruised, but persistent. The guys worked the chain saws; the girls carried off the wooden remnants. “Who needs the gym when you can do this?” one girl queried. We all laughed amidst the ruin, as we really yearned to weep for the people for whom we worked. As it grew dark, an SUV appeared from nowhere. A few women from town had brought us hot spaghetti, cooked carrots, sodas, bananas, and water. Manna from heaven. Remembering how the kind people of Mena had fed us all day long, I don’t believe we lacked for nutrition! Physically or spiritually. The rain picked up. It was time to leave. I was exhausted in a good way and very proud of my sons and their friends.
Mena has suffered much. They need whatever we can give them: our prayer, our money, time, our hands. They are more than grateful. The parishioners of Christ Church urged me over and over, “Come back!” I will in one way or another.
I have had my own personal dark but holy weeks of suffering in life. Without them, I don’t think I would experience the joy of redemption, of healing, of resurrection. I’m not the saintly Mary Magdalene, the first to see the Risen Christ, and the first apostle to the apostles. But I HAVE seen Him in the faces of Mena, Haiti, Mexico, Israel, our local hospitals…faces wearied sometimes and strong at others. I hope they have seen Him in me. Resurrection IS at hand all around us. “We have the proof!” Bishop Maze said this Easter. As Deacon Len Griffin told St. Mark’s at the Easter Vigil, “Save your forks! The best is yet to come!”
Alleluiah, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluiah!
Susan Loy Lyon, D.D.S.
Easter Sunday
April 12, 2009
home made wind generators said:
Great article- Will come back again soon!!