Prairie Pastoral

Like many Christians, I imagine, I spend a whole lot of time during the Easter weekend in the kitchen. Meat: ham. Potatoes: cheesy. Vegetable: none if my family has anything to say about it, but usually broccoli. Pound cake or carrot cake? Hm.

With my Easter station playing on Pandora and my husband in the front yard mowing, kids sleeping in (and in and in), a Chris Tomlin song just brought me to tears. I love this.

I know that Holy Saturday is the day without Jesus, the day Jesus spends in the grave. But, really, in this kitchen, Jesus is all over the place.

In a little while, though, I’ll head to the church for a couple of hours at the prayer vigil. For the first hour, the kids will be there, still squirming even as teenagers. For the second hour, it will be just me, filling in a last minute cancellation.

Sometimes, over the years, Jesus has touched me mightily in the hour of the prayer vigil. Most years, though, his absence is real. It’s just for me about showing up, bearing witness, looking for him in the dark.

That’s really it, isn’t it? Looking for Jesus wherever we are? When He’s hard to find—in the catastrophes and trials—we keep looking. When the sunshine’s so bright as to blind us and the cake falls perfect from the pan—we keep looking for him.

“But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.” (Luke 23:49) They kept looking. They kept hoping. They didn’t go away.

The church today so empty and so silent will tomorrow be filled with trumpets and chocolate-addled children.

More than this, though, every tomorrow calls us to keep looking for Jesus, because those who look will see, those who seek will find.