Happy Easter!
He is not here; He has risen, just as He said. Come and see the place where He lay. Matthew 28:6
Though sin and death cover the earth, our Lord Jesus Christ has conquered sin and death, giving us cause to rejoice! Here is a special reading for today since we are on lockdown.
Enjoy parts of the Easter letter from Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer, his parents, dated Easter Sunday, 25 April 1943. He wrote these words from lockdown in prison.
“Today, ten days have finally passed, and I am allowed to write to you once again. I would really like to let you know that I am celebrating a happy Easter here. What is so liberating about Good Friday and Easter is the fact that our thoughts are pulled far beyond our personal circumstances to the ultimate meaning of all life, suffering, and indeed everything that happens, and this gives us great hope. Since yesterday it has become wonderfully quiet throughout the building. One could heart many people call out “Happy Easter” to each other, and, without envy, one wishes that everyone who carries out their difficult duty in here be granted the fulfillment of that wish. I now also hear your Easter greetings as you are gathered together today with my brothers and sisters and thinking of me…
I continue to be well, I am healthy, permitted to be outside for a half hour every day… I am treated well and read a lot, besides the newspaper and novels especially the Bible. I don’t have the concentration to work properly. However, during this Holy Week, I was finally able to intensively study a section of the Passion Narrative, Jesus’ high priestly prayer, in which I have had a long-standing strong interest as you know… Surprisingly, the days are passing by quickly in here. It seems incredible to me that I have already been here for three weeks… I look forward to my dreams. In the past I never knew what a delightful gift they are. I dream every night, and they are always pleasant. Until I fall asleep, I recite the verse I memorized during the day. Then at six in the morning, I enjoy reading psalms and hymns, thinking of you, and knowing that you are thinking of me too.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Works, Volume 8: Letters and Papers from Prison (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2010) 61-63.
Notice how Bonhoeffer maximized lockdown. He memorized a verse a day. He wrote loved ones when he was able. He even started the day with psalms and hymns, remembering those he loved but from whom he was separated.
He gave thanks for small blessings like dreams. He enjoyed only a brief moment of fresh air per day, and yet, he did not waste his experience. How can his example help you endure lockdown with our risen Lord?
I suggest the best way to conclude today’s post is to meditate on the text Bonhoeffer studied in Holy Week. It’s the prayer of Jesus for us: John 17. Sit quietly and imagine Jesus praying this over you, with you, for you. Be blessed!
After Jesus said this, He looked toward heaven and prayed:
“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.
I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”