An Easter Message for you:
HAPPY EASTER! He has risen indeed! Hallelujah!
First of all, if you were hoping to go to church and you’re not sure what to do now, I’d love if you’d join Lesleigh, Theo, and me at our church today. Here’s where we’ll be: Elevation Church LIVE stream at 8:30am CST.
This will be the first Easter Sunday I’ve ever spent in the house. As a boy, I always woke up early, put on my tie and dress clothes, spent a few minutes looking for a very well-hidden Easter basket (I’ve known the Easter Bunny to be a remarkably tricky creature), before walking down the street to church to play trumpet with my mom at the sunrise and 9am Easter Worship Services.
The blasting brass, the choir, the organ, the lilies on the altar, and the hymns of resurrection, redemption, hope, and joy moved me profoundly.
My life has taken me many places on this day: in 2006, I was at the massive Vatican Easter mass among tens-of-thousands of people in Rome, last year I celebrated privately with just a couple of close friends while on tour in the Middle East.
This year, our world needs Easter as much as ever. I’ve seen people posting about a new trend called “Toxic Positivity.” It is directed at people, like me, who aren’t posting every day about case counts and death tolls.
I empathize with your fear, and weep with those who weep. What I can control is what I DO take in. Yes, I know the news, but I watch it after reading my Bible or watching a good news piece about courage. I prefer to look at fear on a spectrum. There’s a difference between feeling afraid and moving forward, and feeling afraid and moving backward to panic and hysteria.
I lived in the aftermath of 9/11, I lost my job and couldn’t find another in 2008, I’ve ridden in the back of an ambulance holding Lesleigh’s hand while she lay still, in a neck brace, on a stretcher, after we were run off the highway by a drunk driver in 2014, and I had Covid-19 symptoms and telemedicine advised I self-quarantine. I was in bed for 9 days (3 weeks ago). I know suffering. I also know that suffering leads to perseverance, which leads to character.
I’m hoping with my positivity to remind people that evil has not won, and will not win, this world. Easter is hope. Hope is a living thing.
He has risen indeed! Let us Rejoice with hopefulness!
Love, Tony