Even clergy fall into the trap of asking another clergy
on Easter Monday, “how was your Easter?” It’s almost like asking someone on
January 1, 2017: how was your 2017? Easter Day is one day, but it is only the
first day of a fifty-day Easter season, going all the way to Pentecost.
Mostly, during Easter Season the readings will focus on
the resurrection and stories about the early Christians. We rarely read from
the Old Testament during Easter season. It sometimes proves challenging for
preachers to be creative every Sunday, and every year, but it is never tiring.
It is always exciting to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and how
this event frees us from guilt and enables us to be more like Christ.
We tend to drop the Confession and Absolution part of our
worship to remind us that the forgiveness won for us by the resurrection is
indeed effectual. We don’t entirely forget the need for repentance, so we still
recite the Lord’s Prayer, and include the need for forgiveness in a petition in
the Prayers of the People, and we participate in the Holy Eucharist.
So, until the Day of Pentecost you can ask how my Easter
is going.
Now, you don’t have to make your
collection of Easter eggs last the whole fifty days, but they are a nice symbol
for the whole season. In pre-Christian celebrations in Europe the egg symbolized
rebirth and was associated with the spring-time. The early Christians also used the egg,
specifically as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus. It’s hard outer shell
was like the tomb that Jesus was buried in, and from which he was raised. From
this tomb came new life for all of us to share.
Personally,
when it comes to chocolate ones, I like the hollow eggs, they remind me that
the tomb was empty. Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
No comments:
Post a Comment