There won’t be choral cantatas and churchwide egg hunts and congregations gathered for sunrise services or sunset prayers.
There won’t be extended family dinners or traditional communion ceremonies.
Two of the most significant religious seasons of the year, Easter and Passover, collide this week with a historic season of illness, anxiety and widespread isolation, as the coronavirus pandemic bears down across the globe.
While traditions and ceremonies have been dampened, the significance and spiritual comfort of the holidays has been heightened. And while churches and synagogues across the nation and here in the Midlands will have their doors closed to most parishioners this week, their messages of hope and meaning will be spoken far and wide.
“I would say, in fact, the meaning has been magnified,” said George Wright, pastor of Shandon Baptist Church in Columbia. “This Easter, everybody is recognizing life is not normal. In that reflective mode, people are asking questions they normally don’t consider. They’re looking for hope and looking for some answers in all of this.”
“I’m preaching about the empty tomb to an empty room,” one Columbia pastor says. “But I know people are still tuned in, and God’s going to bless it.” How are you celebrating Easter or Passover this week? https://t.co/u68wkILfzC
— The State Newspaper (@thestate) April 6, 2020