Holy Saturday is a time of liminality. Mere hours ago, Jesus gave up his last breath as the curtain of the temple was torn in two, commending his Spirit to God. It is the holy space between a full exhale of carbon dioxide and the ache for the inhalation of oxygen.
At Sunrise on Easter Sunday, the west coast air is crisp and new. The smells of cedar and salt-water permeate the nostrils like incense. I’ve often ventured out, coffee in hand, bleary eyed, making my way towards an Easter Sunrise Service. In my younger years it was at Clover Point. A small group of disciples, bundled up for the weather in function not fashion. Arriving like the women to the tomb where Jesus had been laid. A bit disoriented. Simultaneously weary and expectant.
In later years, arriving on top of Mt. Tolmie with the rising sun, and a few years after that at the end of Wooten Road in Metchosin in front of the wide-open Pacific and under the flight of an eagle. This year, for something completely different, I’ll arrive with the disciples on a Lutheran church building rooftop at the crest of the Cambie Street corridor overlooking the magnificent traditional unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, or Vancouver as it is more colonially known.
Arriving at the tomb we find a stone, but it isn’t the barrier we expect. It blocks nothing. It conceals nothing. As people arrive on the urban rooftop, we’ll gather in a circle and select a hard, smooth stone from a basket. With the spring wind echoing around us, we’ll silently reflect on the metaphorical stones that must be rolled away from our tombs, the places of death in our lives, in our choices and in our relationships. What barriers have we allowed to be put between us and our neighbours?
The past two years have been a liminal experience. We’ve all been aching to breathe again. We’ve been divided in our ideologies. We’ve at times become hardened towards others. We’ve realized that we’re tired and with the energy we have remaining, we’d much rather prioritize love over apathy, growth over stagnation, generosity over greed and community over isolation. Yet we acknowledge that there are an overwhelming number of stones in our lives and in the world. Barriers that get in our way of the lifegiving flourishing that God would breathe into the world as it was created and even now still.
Sometimes those stones are systemic, and we work collectively to clear a path for others. Sometimes those stones are merely the falsehoods we believe about ourselves and the world, rather than the truth that we are unequivocally beloved by some unseen God who wants nothing but abundant life for all of us. And yet, this is the ancient promise of Easter. The stone has been rolled away.
Standing on the rooftop, we’ll turn our gaze west towards the Burrard Inlet and renounce together that which is hardened and lifeless. We’ll turn and face east towards the Fraser River and remember our faith, embracing God’s gift of life. We’ll name silently that which we want to nurture in our lives, our choices, our relationships, and we will place all that hope with God. In the next weeks, we’ll lay that small stone aside somewhere in the world as a sign of our acceptance that God has never ceased breathing into creation and never will.
The stone is moved, and God wants nothing but life for us. May we want it for ourselves and the world too.
The Rev. Aneeta Devi Saroop (she/her) is the pastor at Spirit of Life Lutheran Church in Vancouver, BC. She is an Ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in sa国际传媒.
You can read more articles on our interfaith blog, Spiritually Speaking, HERE: /blogs/spiritually-speaking
* This article was published in the print edition of the sa国际传媒 on Saturday, April 16th 2022
