Saturday, April 07, 2012

Easter

It's beginning to look as though we'll never go anywhere for holidays. Not complaining, just stating facts. With my hybrid hobbit/elephant feet at the moment, I'm not much good for going out walking (serious swelling starting to happen over here) and we just don't get organized fast enough.

So this Easter weekend has been spent mostly at home. We had a lovely evening with friends on Friday and today slept in, ate gourmet meals, and enjoyed our respective pet projects. Vance is going to make a baby toy as woodworking project #3 and I've been enlisted to come up with a milk paint recipe. Non-toxic, milk paints have been around for centuries. All you need is hydrated lime, milk, vinegar and pigments. So tonight included some pigment research, as I tried to find the best organic options for both color and price considerations. Though I do have a mortar and pestle, and briefly considered grinding down some of my unused semi-precious stones...I quickly decided that was much too much work!

On a purely practical note, I can't wait for Easter to be over, as it makes me claustrophobic to go into the grocery stores, with the aisles upon aisles of chocolate eggs hanging from the ceiling. It's like being in a cave where the stalactites are within inches of your head and clad in garish blue, purple and yellow foil, ready to drop at a moment's notice.

I'm not much for the whole chocolate-mania and rabbitness that surrounds Easter. Maybe that will chance once the kiddo arrives and when he gets old enough to decorate eggs. For now, though, it's a holiday I mostly celebrate quietly, contemplatively.

For example, today I read some great Easter Saturday meditations and comments; after all, today is the day Christians remember when God was dead. Seriously. It's a day of hopelessness, of living in despair, of being alone in the world. Not the sort of day for eating chocolate and celebrating because with God dead and the hope of a renewed world nailed up there with him, there's not really a whole lot to look forward to for the rest of one's existence. It's like being perpetually in the first 30 or so chapters of the book of Job…no answers, only condemnation and alienation.

Gosh. That's depressing.

Of course, as any avid reader can tell you, things don't really start to get good until you reach the lowest point of your story. You need to know there's nowhere to go but up. The hero is backed into a corner, all seems lost...and then...THEN things start happening.

That's why Easter is the biggest celebration in the Christian calendar.

It shows us that creativity wins.

Common sense and experiential wisdom say that once someone dies, that is it. Show's over. Goodbye, forever.

Apparently, God doesn't agree with our limited imaginations.

Glory, alleluia!

And so, on Easter Sunday, we get to celebrate triumph. Of life over death, of God over sin, justice over injustice, and love over all. We celebrate the resurgence of hope, of the possibility or rebirth, of making all things new. Of that new kingdom not being one in the clouds, for some nebulous hereafter, but right in this very moment. God is alive...and we (to quote Switchfoot ) have a "new way to be human." Pretty exciting, I think.


So...happy Easter! Celebrate resurrection!

2 comments:

Ellen said...

I liked your thoughts on Easter. On 'Dead Saturday' I, too contemplated the hopelessness of that day. The disciples locked away somewhere, fearing for their own lives- hopeless because their Lord had been wrongfully murdered and desperate because they felt that they had no future. But, what they couldn't see what that during that 'dead sabbath' Christ was doing a work- a spiritual work, invisible to them. Reminds me that just because we can't see it, doesn't mean He's not doing something amazing- like bringing life to something that is dead. Thank God for Easter!

anne said...

I must say, I never thought of it that way. I know the story, etc, and do recall the sorrow and the hidden-away-hopelessness, but knowing as i did, the ending (or beginning!), I never really thought deeply about "dead saturday".

thanks for the perspective!