"Easter"

This morning, when Pastor Shulz opened the doors of the church, he was met with the heavy scent of lilies. It's Easter, the day when the resurrection of Jesus is celebrated, and a day for proclaiming our joyful resurrection with him. It's a day full of hope and the promise of new life.

But that wasn't what impressed Pastor Shulz when he opened the doors, and the smell immediately filled his nostrils. The immediate impression he had was one of death. It was the smell of the funeral parlor. It hit him hard, and at first, all he could do was to stand there, shaking. His wife, Ada, had died over three years ago, but now it suddenly came full force upon him. She had loved lilies, especially Stargazers, and everyone knew it. As she lay in rest at the funeral home, the room slowly filled up with them, until the smell was overpowering.

Pastor Shulz hadn't thought about it since then, until the moment those doors opened. Usually it was the sexton that did the honors on Easter morning, but he called in sick this morning. So Pastor Shulz told him, "That's alright. I'll be there anyway. You just go back to bed. It's no fun being sick on Easter." And he kidded him that maybe it was a bad jelly bean that laid him low.

As Pastor Shulz stood at the entrance of the church, this fresh memory of Ada, laid over the traditional joy and hope of Easter, it reminded him how closely Good Friday and Easter are linked. One must always go with the other. Without Good Friday, all you have is a "theology of glory," always so popular in America, with our "can do" spirit. Without Good Friday, Easter becomes just another success story, this time on God's part, giving validity to all of our successes, without thinking of the cost of them to ourselves or to others. But without Easter, our world sinks into Good Friday, and just stays there. Life becomes a brutal tragedy, with no hope, but only a grave at the end of it all.

He had decided not to participate in Ada's funeral. It was too much. He took a bit of flack for that. Some parishioners thought that, if Ada was a Christian, her funeral should be a celebration of joy, a returning of the child to her father in heaven. They thought the hymns should be upbeat, and speak of what a glorious thing it is to be a Christian, to be someone who has no fear of death, who knows it is just a homecoming. But Pastor Shulz didn't feel that way. He wondered how a loving father could wrench his heart out of him and break it into a million pieces like that. He wondered why someone so loving, so wonderful as Ada, had to suffer so from cancer, until it ate up her whole body, and left her a shell of a person. Why, if God wouldn't heal her, then why not, at least, take her before she had to go through so much pain. She died in pieces- every day, another little bit was missing, until there was just nothing left. And then she was finally gone.

It was good that Pastor Shulz came early today - so that no one saw him standing there, in the entrance of the church, weeping over a death already a few years old but, today, was as fresh as the lilies that filled the church with their fragrance.

As he stood there, he couldn't help think of Mary of Magdala, in the garden, weeping, just as he was; whose heart was just as broken as his and filled with death. He thought of how she heard those precious words from one she took to be the gardener, softly calling her name: "Mary." And, turning and seeing him, the joy that filled her heart, overcoming her grief.

How he wished that he could have opened those doors, and find Ada standing there, amid the lilies.

But she wasn't. Only the smell of flowers, and the flood of memory, greeted him. And he knew it might be a while before he saw her again. Until then, only hope could bring them together - and faith - that the one who once called out Mary's name also knew Ada's, and his as well. The faith that both he and his beloved wife were both resting in the same arms, and would never be far from one another. That is what the preacher, Jim Boroughs, his friend from Grace Methodist church, who preached at Ada's funeral, said. He said: "She will never be far from you. She, and you, are both in Jesus' arms. She is always as close as a prayer."

Pastor Shulz knew that. She was always close to him - close as a prayer. And that is what he did, and how he finally entered the church, and how he finally was able to proclaim what he needed to proclaim to the people of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church. He began with a prayer - thanking God for Ada, for bringing her into his life, for the years they had of joy together, for teaching him about love, and patience, and forebearance, and forgiveness, and all those other wonderful things you learn when you love someone and live with them for a long while. He thanked God also for receiving her, and prayed that he would keep her until they could be together again. He thanked God for the resurrection, and even for this time in-between, because, he said, "it reminds me how precious a gift a person can be, and I know now what true joy will be, when I see her again."

Then, for Pastor Shulz, Good Friday and Easter came together: despair and hope, death and resurrection, the desire for what lay in the past, and the foretaste of the feast to come.

And that is what pastor Shulz is celebrating this morning with the good people of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, in a church not too far from here, a congregation that is not much in the eyes of the world but, this morning, is celebrating the resurrection.