EASTER: DRINKING THE CUP OF SALVATION

There are many Easters in my memory: from the ones experienced as a child with new dress-up clothes and maybe a special hat. (Easter bonnets were a real thing when I was young.)

There were Easter baskets filled with treats, milk chocolate bunnies, jelly beans and marshmallow chicks. An egg hunt followed by a family feast of lamb or ham and a cake with coconut icing. Those are wonderful memories of Easter celebrations. Sometimes Lent and Easter can be the same year after year – the Ash Wednesday threshold, the sacrifices of Lent, followed by a joyful celebratory feast of Resurrection day!

But sometimes Easter can be very different. There have been some challenging ones in my life.  One year my father-in-law was dying. Another time our baby was in the hospital and was released home just before Easter weekend. Another year, when I was 8 and a half months pregnant, I went into labour on Easter day. Fast forward a few more years, and I had to take a leave of absence from my stressful job and use the time of Lent to decide if I could stay in that job or not.

This year turns out to be another very different time for me. The week before Ash Wednesday, I had surgery to remove cancer from my body and I spent the weeks of Lent recovering from surgery. As I continue to recover physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, there are many other adjustments needed.

Early on in Lent, I had a conversation with my spiritual director. We talked about “offering up my suffering” and “hiding” myself in the wounds of Christ. I struggled with how to make that connection. The resurrected body of Christ still had the wounds and the scars. Those scars are a symbol of his suffering, death and resurrection. If Christ had physical wounds to his body, then Christ would understand the physical wounds and scars I now have in mine. 

But it’s not easy to make sense and connect my surgery, suffering and scars with Christ’s. Some of the suffering involves the “why me?” question as well as the wondering if there was an option to “take this cup away from me.” Christ expressed similar feelings. So, there is that connection. Having surgery was a sacrifice. Losing part of my body was a traumatic experience but it has brought me to a new place – a new chance, a life with promise of better health even if just for the moment. Could my scars be a symbol of my own new life – freed of the cancer cells that had taken hold? I am hopeful but I know there are no guarantees. I am also reminded that there never were.

My Lenten journey last year included writing 47 reflections for the Novalis Sacred Journey booklet for this season. For me to be reading those this year, under very different circumstances, has been a great blessing. Just when I was faced with a very different kind of Lent, I get to read my own reflections and prayers in this new light. Life is full of challenges and   some of mine were shared in those reflections. Because I have lived to tell, reading those reflections gives me renewed confidence and trust in God to see me through this challenging time. This is the cup I have been given. And now it’s about drinking the cup. Henri Nouwen tells us that the cup of salvation is willingly drinking the cup of both sorrow and joy. Good Friday and Easter, suffering and redemption, sorrow and joy: we need the pain and suffering in order to feel the joy. We need both to be whole. 

Already my pain is lessening, I have more energy and interest in other things (like figuring out how to write this blog post). I am indeed coming out the other side: My Easter experience is a joyful celebration. I have lived through this part of my journey and have learned that for now, no further treatment is needed. I am very grateful for this good news, for health care and for the support and love that has been given to me over the past few months.

This Easter season is not my resurrection, but it is newness: it’s a fresh start. It will be my opportunity to revive myself, to feel whole again and set my priorities about how I will carry on. I am reminded by the symbols of spring flowers, baby chicks and coloured eggs, joyful memories of Easter candy, bonnets and marshmallow peeps! 

And maybe, I will get myself a pretty new hat, too!

What return can I make to the Lord for the Lord’s generosity to me?

I shall take up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.

Psalm 116: 12-13

Jeanne Lambert combines her experiences as a parish and community nurse and her music ministry, and she continues to find ways to include music in pastoral care and community hospice work. Jeanne has many diverse writings and presentations to her credit on family life, grief, wholistic health care and spiritual reflection.