It was a cool spring mor­ning. Pu­pils ran in­to the cor­ri­dor half­way through their break.

– We found a bird! It’s bre­at­hing!

The one who came in first was hol­ding a small bird in his hands. The bird was brui­sed and stiff with cold, see­ming­ly li­fe­less, but its he­art was be­a­ting un­der its dull-co­lo­red fe­at­hers.

I took the bird and went in­to a small sto­ra­ge room to exa­mi­ne it. The child­ren came rus­hing af­ter me, squ­ee­zing in bet­ween the cram­med shel­ves. I held the bird bet­ween my palms and tried to warm it with my bre­ath.

Sud­den­ly there was a mi­rac­le. The bird be­gan to wrig­g­le bet­ween my palms. It spread its wings, stretc­hed its throat and sang a char­ming lit­t­le song. And an ins­tant la­ter it was dead!

We were speech­less, both I and the child­ren. The child­ren’s ey­es were full of one big qu­es­ti­on, and so was my mind. I cried. The bird’s jo­y­ful song at the mo­ment of de­ath see­med deep­ly and touc­hing­ly sym­bo­lic.

While re­cent­ly re­a­ding the 1948 edi­ti­on of Ca­tec­hism, I saw in its words a ref­lec­ti­on of this event with the bird: ”Sin ef­fec­ted de­ath in man­kind, and de­ath cons­tant­ly dest­ro­ys hu­man life. Be­cau­se of the sin­ful­ness of man, all cre­a­ti­on is al­so sub­ject to a bon­da­ge of tran­si­to­ri­ness, from which it longs for free­dom.”

The time of co­vid-19 lock­down has been dif­fe­rent from any ot­her time: for a lo­ne­ly per­son this time has been even lo­ne­lier. Yet, on­li­ne bro­ad­casts have gi­ven com­fort. The light of God’s word has been shi­ning bright­ly.

But there have al­so been he­a­vy doubts. Thoughts of what one has done or has fai­led to do may have al­most drow­ned one in des­pair.

Lo­ne­li­ness at those mo­ments has been he­art-ren­ding. If on­ly there were so­me­o­ne in my home who would lis­ten to my an­xi­ous thoughts. The ene­my of souls is of­ten there when I try to grab the phone. It would not let me ex­pe­rien­ce the li­ving and mer­ci­ful pre­sen­ce of re­sur­rec­ted Christ to­get­her with anot­her be­lie­ver.

I re­mem­ber a por­ti­on of the Ep­he­si­ans from one ser­mon kept du­ring the lock­down. Paul wri­tes that the po­wer God ma­ni­fes­ted in Christ’s re­sur­rec­ti­on is still ef­fec­ti­ve in be­lie­ving pe­op­le. It is cer­tain­ly not a mi­nor po­wer. There was an earth­qu­a­ke on Eas­ter mor­ning when the an­gel came down from he­a­ven to roll away the stone that bloc­ked ent­ry in­to Je­sus’ tomb. Isn’t that po­wer enough to car­ry even the we­a­kest one to the des­ti­na­ti­on?

”Christ Je­sus lay in de­ath’s strong bands, for our of­fen­ces gi­ven; but now at God’s right hand He stands and brings us life from he­a­ven.” This Eas­ter hymn, which seems to be­co­me de­a­rer and de­a­rer to me eve­ry ye­ar, has of­ten gi­ven me com­fort du­ring this de­vas­ta­ting time of light and sha­dow.

Text:Tuu­la Stång

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal blog post here.