Seemed Like Easter

It seemed like Easter Sunday this morning when I opened the front door and stepped out on the porch.  Maybe it was just that it was Sunday.  Or, perhaps, it was the morning sun that followed a stormy night which filled so many with apprehension of what might be and others with the reality of what could be.  Out on the porch all those night time anxieties were pushed away by a gentle blowing wind filled with the smell of moisture in the air doused with a gracious hint of Spring.  Being out there on the front porch on the way to worship caused me to pause and say to the creation around me, "Feels like Easter!"   

It was certainly one way to describe the greeting received by all that was filling my senses in those morning moments.  The first Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, as I am prone to call it came only after a violent storm which filled the world of the cross with an overwhelming deep darkness and a shaking of the earth that tore stones apart as well as the sacred veil in the Temple.  The conflict between good and evil first seen in the Garden of Eden was like a Sunday School class compared to the conflict which took place on mount Calvary.  If ever there was a moment in which the Devil himself declared victory, it was when the bloodied and empty of breath body of Jesus was dropped from the cross.  

And if ever there was a moment when the evil one knew his power was broken and could never prevail, it was that morning when the stone was rolled away from an empty tomb and the resurrected Jesus roamed the garden.  When I stepped off the porch onto the ground on the way to worship, it seemed that I stepped into a holy space where everything that is was celebrating the good news shouted from the empty tomb.  As I said, it seemed like Easter!  Even though the days of Lent are still heavy in the air, I cannot help but say, "Hallelujah!"