The Gardener, Afternoon Sun ~ 1899

This is my favorite Pissarro painting, and so I have saved it for the end of our Lenten weeks. It is a brilliantly lit day. We can feel the pleasure of sun, scent, breeze and sky. There is short-stroked energy in the ground and plant life behind the young gardener. 

We don't know who this fellow is. Carrying a bucket, he's wearing muck boots, an apron and straw shade-hat. He is setting out. Perhaps he's carrying water to a young tree he's planted that is beyond the reach of the hose. Or he is off to collect potatoes or tomatoes. Or has he got fertilizer in the bucket? All of that is for our imagining. But for me, what's most important is that he's in motion, stepping into his afternoon's work. 

We are ready to hear the Easter story again. The word "story" doesn't mean fiction. Story means the unfolding of our lives. After his resurrection, the gospel evangelists share a number of Risen-Jesus stories: The women at the tomb, Jesus meeting Magdalene, Jesus meeting Thomas, Jesus meeting Peter, Jesus walking with the disciples on the evening road to Emmaus. 

Some Christians just admire Christ's Easter story. But the gospel writers didn't give us the story to admire, but to pick up and make our own. This is at the heart of the Christian spiritual life. Like the gardener boy in bright light, we're invited to set out in the living and telling of the Easter event internalized and personalized - one story at a time, as our own lives unfold.

So, can I tell the personal story of waking up from what I might call sleep? Can I tell the personal story of having been buried and come forth again? Discovering joy out of sadness? 

At Easter, Christ enters into the greatest contest of life over death. Can I tell of some inner, lived-identification with that contest? Some personal sharing in Christ's movement from darkness to light? Some personal renewal and restoration? Some redemption, this side of heaven? 

This is living Easter, not just admiring it.