_zwerg_bemalt_ostereier.jpg)
Happy Easter.
As a Christian, I get the feeling I’m supposed to denounce the bunnies, baskets and eggs. But I can’t. I love dyeing eggs. I have three bunnies as pets. And I don’t snub my nose at anything containing chocolate. I am a bit iffy on jelly beans.
But I’m fine with those cute images of bunnies, baskets, colored eggs. I like the new dress and lilies too.
I have struggled with the cross.
And then there’s this 3 day span of Jesus being tortured, crucified and put in a tomb. And the resurrection part is good, but still. I can’t look at the cross and not think about the other parts. The icky parts.
It just always had me kind of bewildered. I found it weird that we have Sunday with new dresses, and lots more singing, and all the flippin’ JOY of Easter when it is has all this gruesome backstory.
My favorite service during this time is Maundy Thursday. Even if you don’t ascribe to a denomination that offers a Maundy Thursday service, I would go.
Talk about mo
rbid and depressing. It’s fabulous. It’s really what helped me GET Easter Sunday.
The very darkness of that service. Entirely different than anything else happening in church the rest of the year.
The absence of light and sound and beauty.
Absence.
I know that life. My life without faith in a Good God. And it is dark and silent. Beauty removed or certainly draped in black.
There is an absence that can’t be accounted for and yet gnawed.
And I know life with faith. That rushing fullness and light. So much Light. At my darkest, when the Light rushed in, the air rippled with it.
And that Light, coming in after darkness is just so much brighter. The absence is over.
It is not the celebration of the resurrection that causes my Easter Joy, it is the relief- the sheer relief- that the darkness and silence ends. The void filled.
Only the tomb was left em
pty.
Not the world.
Not me.
And that’s how I get Easter.
Why I get it.
Why I love it.
Now, where’s my chocolate bunny?
I grew up Church of Christ. We didn’t give up anything for Lent. Good Friday was simply another excuse for the bank to close early. When I heard someone mention Maundy Thursday for the first time, I assumed it was something like two-for-one wings night at the local pub. I realize I don’t see Easter the same as other denominations do, however, I still appreciate the idea of rebirth and renewal. We have the option of picking up a cross or celebrating life in every moment. I tend to be a partier.