We sense it was love you gave your world for;
the town squares silent,  awaiting their cenotaphs.

– Carol Ann Duffy, “The Wound In Time”

Many of us will stand, silent, waiting, at our own gates.

Waiting for sunrise, or for the bugle sounding The Last Post, then bare heartbeats later, Reveille.

It will not be like last year, at dawn, or in the morning, as we remember them.

Less, perhaps, of almost everything.

There will be less mystery, than when we were sentinels with each other in the darkness, just before the dawn.

Less theatre, than the almost-cavalcade, as those who served, and their children, marching with their children’s children, accompanied our community along the main street of Eumungerie, and Griffith, and Sydney’s CBD.

For most of us, Reveille will not sound except, perhaps, in memory.

However, what matters will be present. The remembering, the acknowledgement, the loss, the thankfulness, will all be extant.

Those who served – and still serve – at risk to themselves for others’ sake will still be held in our memories and our prayers.

We will still grieve a death from yesterday, or know the inherited grief of more than a century past.

We are still responsible for those who have returned broken and unsure, believing themselves less than they were, or burdened by far more. And for those who care for them, and for whom they care, what shall we offer? Surely more than memory, or our thankfulness, or our tears?

As disciples of the risen, crucified Jesus, we stand at our gates to remember, but also to look forward. We assert that the violent injustice of war has rarely been an answer, and never a hopeful one.

We proclaim a faith in which our God, our selves, our neighbour and even our enemy are loved. So what does remembering look like, in hope, as we follow Jesus?

We embody that hope of forgiveness and life, present in Jesus, in every relationship we share.

We will stand in thankfulness for service rendered;
we kneel in grief for lives lost, or broken;
we oppose those who call war peace, and violence justice;
and we love our neighbour, and our enemy, at cost to ourselves.

We are an Easter people, believing in hope beyond death. It is this which forms us for our remembering – for the past and for our future.

We know how this season works, whether we are people of faith, or not.

Notwithstanding the clumsy marketing of some supermarkets immediately after Christmas, hot cross buns and chocolate eggs usually appear in late February, so we know that Easter is near.

Despite the irony of buns and chocolate, the Christian church has traditionally marked the weeks before Easter with the challenges of discipline and occasionally abstinence, preparing for the event which is the coherent crux of belief in Jesus Christ.

Many of us – people of faith, some faith and none – have danced this dance before, with worship attendance significantly larger than usual over the Easter weekend. For those of us who honour faithfulness and sacrifice, Anzac Day follows on, sometimes within days.

Easter is about community, acknowledging with thankfulness a priceless sacrifice, the solidarity of Jesus with the brokenness of every human being, and the affirmation that love is stronger than death.

But this year, the dance is entirely different, and many may feel that we will dance alone.

We know, despite their depredations, how to manage natural disasters when they come. The chaos of the fire season, ravaging the drought-scorched landscape, drew us even closer as community. We carried people in our arms and our prayers, gathered on beaches, in surf clubs, and lounge rooms – together. Our fear was lessened because our shoulders bumped old and new friends as we faced the crisis.

This season we wait, in our individual spaces, zooming and texting and tweeting, quarantined from a virus and each other, wondering how to share communion, or play two-up, with no one standing, or laughing, or weeping, or singing, next to us.

This year, sanctuaries across the planet which are usually replete with music and colour and celebration will sit silent over the Easter weekend. In this season of disorder, our community will try to find its steps.

Churches and families have already begun to adapt, with a plethora of choice in worship and theology sweeping across the net, matched only by the marketing of businesses as chaos confronts the world they know. As in everything, some are acts of creativity and faithfulness; some, of course, are not.

However, a zoomed event is not the same as shaking the hand of a friend, or leaning on their shoulder. Sharing a meal, blessing a marriage, weeping at a graveside, blowing out birthday candles are inherent to the weave of all our lives.

People in our community are wary of their quarantine, as mental health concerns become more tangible. For some, home is not the sanctuary everyone deserves; violence and abuse can be appalling visitors when uncertainty and fear meet loneliness and isolation.

How will we care? How will our compassion be realised for those around us? Incidental conversations need now to be more deliberate, as we attend to those who might not call our attention to their need – small, or not so small.

Easter is more than what happened in Jerusalem two millennia ago. It is more than a story of empire and sacrifice, betrayal and suffering. It declares far more than a promise of life wrested from the silent injustice of death.

Easter is hope. This is not the trivialised “hope” for a parking space, or that it rains tomorrow. This is the hope which looks at what Jesus proclaimed in his life, in his death, and when he was raised again to life.

How Jesus invites (calls!) us to live – loving our neighbour, our enemies, even ourselves – is made tangible in his suffering and death at the hands of his neighbours and those who feared and hated him.

Jesus is the one who understands the fear of suffering, the grief of isolation, the pain of unjust violence. Jesus is the one who seeks forgiveness for those who harm him.  

Hope resides here.

Those who follow Jesus Christ place their hope in all our suffering being met on the cross with Jesus; when Jesus was raised to life, death was no longer the most powerful word.

Love is.

So, this Easter, we will care for each other, sing our songs, eat our chocolate eggs and call the spinner in by zoom.

We will declare our hope that this story of separation is not our complete story, and will end. We will assert our need for community and justice and life.

We will dance, now and in the days to come.