Unmet Expectations of Easter

Happy Easter!

Did you know Easter is not just one day the Church celebrates? Easter is a whole season, a season that is 50 days long. In fact when you think about, Easter, is really what the Church is all about—new life.

In our first Easter of Beloved Community Outreach Center, we celebrated in a unique way, we celebrated what we called Easter in the Wild—we took the Easter message, we took parts of Holy Week (the week leading up to Easter), and we celebrated them outdoors, in parks, with neighbors and friends. We weren’t really sure what to expect, still in the midst of a pandemic, still figuring out how to be a community of belonging without walls, still trying to ask questions of what Church looks like when so much of what we are practicing looks different than what one might find in a “traditional” church.

We were prepared to do a Maundy Thursday service with foot washing, we were prepared to do Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, we were prepared for Easter services on Sunday with an egg hunt and breakfast food truck, but really and truly we weren’t sure what to expect, all we could really do was hope that we were being faithful to sharing God’s love. There are a 1,000 and one recommendations for how to do this, there are probably branding and managing gurus who could sell our ministry as a product, but none of that would feel authentic to who we are and who we hope to become, so sometimes all you can do it take a leap of faith, and hope for the best.

For Maundy Thursday, the day where Jesus washed his disciples feet and shared in the Last Supper, we had partnered with St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and School and the Rev. Deacon Terry Goff from Trinity Episcopal Church to collect new shoes and socks for those in need, especially those who primarily travel around town as pedestrians. Even before all the donations were in we were able to start giving out new socks to neighbors in Bienville Square during our Free Listening offering. Our conversations with neighbors that day prompted some ideas about pivoting some of our plans for Good Friday.

For Good Friday, several of our core team members came together in Bienville Square for Free Listening, and we handed out socks, snacks, talked with neighbors, shared cookies from Ellen Jay bake shop, and handed out flowers to everyone who passed by, excitedly telling them, “Happy Easter!”

Easter Sunday we came together for a sunrise service with chicken and waffles breakfast provided by Smac’s Food Truck. We had an egg hunt and mid-morning service as well. While our Easter was beautiful we had miscalculated how much food we would need, so we had a bunch left over. Smac boxed it up for us so we could take it to friends in need in Bienville Square.

For all of the Holy Weeks and Easters there have ever been, this Holy Week and Easter didn’t meet the expectations of the past (at least for me), in the best ways possible. In being reminded we are Easter people, that the resurrection has happened, suddenly telling people Happy Easter on Good Friday didn’t feel so out of place. When we didn’t have as many people come for breakfast as we anticipated, we did what Jesus would do and shared the meal with neighbors we knew might need it and appreciate it. In not meeting the old expectations, we were able to see new ways God might call us into being in the future, we were able to think about how maybe it was our expectations we needed to change, not our neighbors.