April 12, 2026 Reflection

Of course they were afraid. People in the Bible are always alarmed when confronted with angels. They’re afraid because often the message of the angels is: “Heads up…God has started or is going to do something that will put carefully constructed patterns of complacency and flimsy walls of security in the dust.’” (Keith Howard, Observer, April 2006, p. 49)

The presence of angels means the possibility of life-changing upheaval. Perhaps we are going to be asked to set aside our cynicism and sophisticated senses and to believe in something unbelievable. Perhaps we are going to be asked to embrace hope despite all evidence to the contrary and to live in love, despite the competition and individualism of our culture. Fear is a reasonable response when confronted with angels. No cause for fear says the angel – Jesus has been raised from the dead. Good cause for fear respond our reasonable minds.

The first manuscripts of Mark end with the women running away and keeping silent. No joy from the women. No testimonies to Jesus’ other followers. There are many theories about why the ending was embellished in later years. I think the reason for the addition is because, although Mark stopped writing, the women didn’t stop wondering; they didn’t stop wondering and reflecting and talking about what happened at the tomb, and what the angel said to them. I think that bit by bit they told friends about what happened on that first Easter morning. Bit by bit, over meals, in the presence of their nearest and dearest, they shared their experience. And those friends told their friends. And their friends, told their friends.

There is a school of thought that says without language nothing is real. Without naming things and ideas and feelings – nothing really exists. In language, in speaking or signing together, we’re sorting and sifting, we’re saying out loud what we have experienced, giving it shape and meaning. In talking about our experiences together we develop the solidarity that comes from sharing lives, we develop the strength of being entwined in a braid of community rather than standing alone, a frail thread of individualism. And a community narrative begins to emerge, a new reality takes shape.

We see it happen all the time when people of faith gather and are brave enough to tell the truth about how they’re doing, what they have experienced.  It happens at coffee tables and in dining rooms, on the side of our children’s playing fields and as we sing or craft together. It happens when we are comfortable, when we feel we can trust those we are talking to. Sometimes in those situations, we tell each other about those moments when we have known, beyond question, that the holy was with us.

            A few years ago, at this time of year, I was travelling to Whidbey Island for a leadership course. My colleague David Ewart and I decided we would travel via the tulip route, to see the spectacular sight of thousands of tulips in bloom around Mt. Vernon and La Connor in Washington. We entered Mt. Vernon, drawn by the towering smokestack with a tulip painted along its full height. We followed signs indicating the route. It was obvious we were expected, along with thousands of others. We passed an open pick-up truck with a woman in the back dropping off orange traffic cones in driveways so that the tulip tourists wouldn’t park or turn in private entrances. We passed parking lots with men available to direct traffic and others ready to take our money. At one point we went into one of the farms to buy tulips for our instructor. There were two ticket windows with cheerful attendants greeting us warmly. Inside was a lovely gift shop. One artist was hanging a painting; another person was brushing off a tapestry, removing any lint and wrinkles.  

Everybody was there, everybody was ready, and everybody was busy. The only thing between us and a spectacular day of viewing the tulips was…there were no flowering tulips. There were acres and acres of green leaves, miles and miles of manicured fields of flowerless tulips. Only on the very far horizon could we see the odd smudge of colour, the occasional hint of what was to come. “I guess you’re a ways from having the tulips bloom?” I commented to one of the clerks. “Oh no, no.” she affirmed with great confidence. “They’ll be here any day now. They come on very quickly.” 

            When David and I arrived at the gathering at Whidbey Island we told this story and our colleagues were very sympathetic with our disappointment. And then I realized that I felt like I had actually seen the tulips in bloom. Everything was so in place, everyone was so confident, everyone acted so much like there was already a breath-taking display of colour, that I really did have a sense I’d experienced the enormous spectacle of the opened blossoms – even though I hadn’t seen them with my very own eyes. The parking attendants, the ticket takers, the traffic people, the signs and the preparations had created an atmosphere, had shaped a reality that was missing only the physical presence of the flowers. They had formed a gestalt, a coming together of elements and environment and attitude that caused what wasn’t there already to appear present right on the horizon.

            This is the Easter experience. For many of us the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not the full-on spectacle of millions of tulips in flower; it is just that hint of colour on a green field; that smudge of the possibilities of God. It is in the strange warming of our hearts when we gather with friends and familiar strangers, and in that gathering there is another presence, something that makes us more collectively than we are individually. It is in the breaking of bread, either at the communion table or at dinner with friends, when we remember Jesus’ stories of food in abundance, of banquet tables groaning under the weight of enough for everyone.

Sometimes we are frustrated by the subtlety of faith. Sometimes we are exasperated by how understanding and clarity can slip through our fingers when we struggle to know and grasp the exactly how of it all. But, nevertheless, in the season of Easter we celebrate that in the risen Christ we see that God has defeated death, and with that God has defeated despair. The contemporary sin of cynicism disappears like the withered flowers of last season. The paralysis of anxiety is lifted off, and we too are able to rise again, to live again in confidence of God’s presence with us. We believe, quietly and with wonder, that we can hope and struggle and work for and expect that God’s time and God’s intentions will be fulfilled on earth. That we can experience joy anyway, in the midst of the world’s turmoil.

I saw a smudge of the kindom at the Newcomers and Regulars party on Friday night. In the abundance of food, including the vegan option as a sign of inclusiveness. In the great laughter, and the new acquaintances being built. In the random people who were just passing by, joining us at table and hearing of what Mount Seymour is about. In the quiet head to head conversations amongst the raucous noise. In all the helpers and at the end in the silence as Barb cleaned the kitchen and I swabbed the deck and Tierney packed up the abundance of Thrift Mexican related items and Carla even as the night ended transformed the room to be ready for Gert’s memorial yesterday. There was through the night a cohesion formed by a sense that we are part of something bigger than each of us, part of something that drew us together in all our differences and helped us see the commonality of our dreams aligning with God’s dream for a better world. 

The work of the congregation is like the work of the people in the tulip fields. Our ministry is to create the setting, to prepare the field, to await with expectation those who have come to see, so that when they arrive, they can witness the smudge of colour on the horizon, and know that hope is alive, possibilities are abundant. We, you and I, members of Mount Seymour United Church, are the ones who set out the parking signs, who direct the traffic and wait at the ticket booths. We are the ones who greet visitors cheerfully. We offer stories and experiences in all shades and colours that give witness to God with us. We invite all to our table and we hope that in the actions of receiving guests, they will experience the welcome and grace of God.

When David and I followed the tulip route, there weren’t many tourists there at all. People were waiting for the splashy display. They were waiting for the proof, not the possibilities. So it is in many of our churches – people are staying away while they wait for the great sign, for some cataclysmic event that will spur them to believe in the unbelievable. In the meantime, we’ll be here. We will wait and we will point out to each other and to anyone who visits, those smudges of colour on the horizon. We will expend our energies making it possible for visitors to view the hope of a people, and to hear the words that form our reality: that we are not abandoned but accompanied always by the one who calls us beloved. May it be so. May it be now. Amen