This past week, I reached a breaking point.
If you’re a parent stuck at home, you might have as well. Trying to stay on top of emails, video calls, and other work responsibilities while homeschooling the kids is a near impossible task! Cabin fever has already set in and my twin boys are at each other’s throats. After a busy day of work, I realized we let our youngest daughter put in four straight hours of screen time on the family iPad. I do not think we quite have it down!
Our routines and traditions are disrupted. It seems like even Easter is cancelled. When was the last time in history everyone stayed home for Easter? It’s such a sacred point of the year for many of us… are we really going to do this without Good Friday services, Easter Sunday celebrations, and Easter Monday brunches with our family and friends?
In the midst of this upheaval, I’ve found inspiration from the words of author and poet Wendell Berry. He uses the term “practicing resurrection” in his call for the Church to follow in the way of Jesus. He encourages us to live differently—to live with intention because of Easter. We are image-bearers of Christ and of his resurrection.
But too often we are enticed with things that have no long-term, lasting value. The world tells us to take care of ourselves first—to hoard toilet paper and cling to our hand sanitizer. Berry reminds us how scripture calls us to invest our time differently; spend your lives following God, building strong communities, and remembering what matters. We need to remember that Christians are the witnesses to Christ’s one-time resurrection. We demonstrate the power of God’s redemption of the world in how we live and love.
Practicing resurrection is obeying Jesus’s call to love our neighbours and our enemies—whether we’re cooped up at home or not.
These past few weeks, I am reminded of Food for the Hungry’s call to respond in times of crisis, to care for those who cannot care for themselves. It’s a call put into action. In Rwanda, FH staff strapped on protective face masks and dropped off a truckload of food aid for families who haven’t been able to work because of the COVID-19 crisis. In Bangladesh, FH is supplying refugee clinics with much needed medical supplies and protective gear so they can continue to treat patients safely. In Canada, child sponsors have been sending letters of prayers and encouragement to their sponsor children and families. I am so inspired by the obedience of these courageous individuals as they live out the resurrection of Christ by loving the vulnerable.
FH Rwanda staff are ready to drop off beans to vulnerable families in the community. |
Clinics in the Rohingya refugee camp are being restocked with medical supplies and protective gear. |
My family won’t be going to church this Easter like we always have. Instead we are looking for other ways to keep practicing the resurrection of Christ. We’ve been doing grocery or medicine runs for the elderly in our neighbourhood, and making breakfast and dropping it off at Grandma’s. It’s meant some extra screen time as my girls video chat family and friends who are alone and isolated during this time.
Easter celebrations are anything but cancelled! Let’s practice resurrection together this year and follow in the way of Jesus by loving our neighbour—both near and far—as he commanded! We’ll get through this—we were made for this.