An Easter Message from ALSM’s President & CEO
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!
As we know, Easter was never intended to go back to normal, but was, and still is, intended to make all things new.
For those who believe, it means the proclamation of release from suffering, hope replacing despair, and life conquering death.
Obviously, we don’t love our neighbors by putting their health at risk.
This is the second Easter when we will join virtually to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. One biblical text now has new meaning in this time: Matthew 18:20, which reads, “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
Staying distant but worshiping together to celebrate this important day in the Christian faith may bring us even closer. It can be an Easter we will never forget.
The pandemic has highlighted inequalities in our society, the gaping holes in our safety net, and the challenges in our health care systems. It has revealed the reality of our relationships across racial and economic lines. It has highlighted a darkness we have ignored or accepted for a long time–social injustice that destroys our common good.
One can say that the coronavirus does not discriminate, but indeed it does.
People who live in poverty and who do not have access to health care or safe living are more vulnerable to contracting and dying from this disease.
Some ask, “ When will we go back to normal?”
Likely, we won’t and we can’t. This experience has changed us. How we act and with whom and for whom will determine who “we” will be when this crisis passes.
Easter is about making all things new, so what if all that we have learned and are learning about our systems and attitudes in this brutal pandemic makes us new? What if injustice and tolerance of gross inequities were to be transformed? Will this crisis instill a resurrection in our hearts that prompts us not go back to “normal”? I hope so.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.
In service,
Patricia W. Savage
President/CEO
