Easter Online

Easter 2020 would forever live in many’s memories. Even the Queen’s. The Queen broke tradition to give an Easter message and said as much.

We took the Good Friday service online too. It was somber, as one would expect. Later in the day, I did some cleaning up in the garden – trimmed some very tall and overgrown hedges on the back eastern corner of the garden, mowed the lawns and swept up around the outside of the house. It started to rain as I was finishing up and it rained pretty much the whole time after that.

I took to YouTube and listened to the Sydney Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra sing and play Handel’s Messiah. It was beautiful and it was a pleasure to revisit this “majestical” piece of work (as Ricky from the Hunt of the Wilder People would say). The rain kept coming down, right through Saturday as well. Tress and I only managed to go outside during very small windows when the rains abated, to also bring the little fellow out for his very short walk.

As I went outside for a stroll just around the front of the house, I bumped into our new neighbour. Ryan and family from next door had moved out some months ago and they have been preparing to sell the property. The virus had put paid to that plan and the property was put on the rental market. On Saturday, I met the tenant and we had a quick chat. He was trying to work out how to get the water heater unit to start up and he also needed a screwdriver to get a laundry to start up. Chris told me he has 4 kids, whom he will have for 3 days a week. A couple of days later, while Tress was outside doing some weeding, he told her more about themselves. I hope he settles into his new home soon.

On Sunday, we took the Easter service online. As it was Easter, instead of just having the service play on the laptop, I connected it up to the TV, but St Alf’s is a conservative outfit and its online services are just videos of Peter and Mike giving talks and slides of hymns we were singing showing up. There were no streaming of onsite services like some other outfits. So I guess connecting it to the TV didn’t make a world of difference but it did mean we could be at the lounge room and get more space instead of huddling over the laptop on the dining table like we did in recent weeks. Peter talked about the “Journey” in the context of the road to Emmaus.

The weather finally cleared up yesterday, on Easter Monday. Tress spent the whole morning outside, weeding and cleaning up flower beds etc. I stayed in and did some house cleaning. We then cooked lunch, for the day as well as for later this week. Later that arvo, after walking the little fellow, we did more cleaning – especially “my office”, i.e., the study room.  Masterchef finally started again last night too, which gave us a bit of a fillip.

“The Journey”, aka “Road to Emmaus” was, in Peter’s message, a bit like a journey  through the valley of the shadow of death. We asked about where our help would come from, and the Psalmist suggested it was from the Lord. So, it is not abnormal to have feelings of despondency. The good book told of two big journeys – the Exodus and the Exile. One was to the Promised Land while the other was away from it. One to a land flowing with milk and honey while the other was to a land as defeated and concurred slaves. Yet through both, God was with the sojourners. The two on the road to Emmaus, were said to be downcast.  Hope was absent and they didnt know what was next. At the end of that journey however, they were filled with hope. The turnaround was said to be an understanding of what the Scriptures were about. That understanding – of an account that culminated in the resurrection – lifted them from being downcast to give them hope.

I thought that was a good message – one of hope at times such as now. Easter 2020, Easter Online 20200 may have facilitated a refocus of what hope is or ought to be all about.