Sorry to send out two pieces in close succession--hope it doesn't overstrain
your mailbox or attention. This will be posted Saturday night on Beliefnet,
as the main Easter feature, they tell me. That kind of surprises me--when I
wrote it I imagined it would be just one of many lead-up pieces they could
use during Holy Week--sort of ordinary column for me, reflecting themes I'd
written on before, not a real ground-breaker. But for some reason the editors
really, really liked it; I've even gotten a couple of personal messages
thanking me for it. All of which goes to show that I am the last one to know
when my writing works or doesn't. Of course, its nicer when things go this
way than the other way! May you all have a very blessed and glorious Pascha.
PS thanks to my friend Mitch Bukzin, our family dentist in the 80's, for
allowing me to quote from an email he sent me last Christmas. If you're ever
in Woodbridge, VA with a bad tooth, phone Mitch--the only dentist I know who
can quote entire Woody Allen movies verbatim.
***
It's that time of year again, when school children are coloring pictures of
Jesus hanging from a cross, and shop-owners fill their windows with gaily
colored cutouts of the Flogging at the Pillar. In the malls everyone's
humming along with seasonal hits on the sound system, like "O Sacred Head
Sore Wounded" (did you hear the Chipmunks' version?). Car dealers are
promoting Great Big Empty-Tomb Size discounts on Toyotas.
Yes, it's beginning to look a lot like Easter. Who hasn't been invited to an
"In His Steps" party, where players move plastic pieces around a board
emblazoned with a map of Jesus' last suffering day in Jerusalem?
Not me, for one. Somehow we just don't make the same boisterous fun of Holy
Week that we do of Christmas. No one plans to have a holly jolly Easter.
Easter just isn't fun in the same way Christmas is, a type of fun that could
be better described as styled for children. It's a commonplace to say that
"Christmas is for children," but what about Easter? Is it for children, too?
It sure didn't seem so to me, back then. Compared to Christmas, Easter was
boring. Chocolate bunnies: good. Scratchy new crinolines: bad. Long
blah-blah-blah at church. A lot of wordy grownup buildup leading to, it
seemed, no payoff. You could always count on Christmas to change a lot of
stuff, especially in the toybox. Easter didn't change anything.
But when you think about the astonishing claims Christians make for Easter,
that neglect seems pretty strange, even to an outsider. My friend Mitch is
Jewish, but his encounters with suffering during medical training led him to
doubt whether there even is a God. Yet last Christmas he sent me this note:
"Looking at the Christmas thing from a man raised in a Jewish home, the big
celebration in Christianity should be Easter. No Easter, no Christianity.
So all the focus on Christmas, at least to me, is misdirected.
"Why Christians don't whoop it up more at Easter is a mystery to me. How
inspirational! How joyful! That is the time to toast each other, lay on
gifts, attend worship services, pack in the rich food. Something really
substantial and holy to remember."
No Easter, no Christianity. Mitch has a point. If Jesus didn't rise from the
dead, who cares whether he was born in a manger or a 7-11? If he didn't rise
from the dead, Christmas is meaningless too.
I remember my toybox, but not much of what was in it, and I don't retain any
of those thrilling Christmas toys today. When I grew up, I put away childish
things. When I grew up I began to be concerned with bigger things, many of
them difficult to comprehend. Like Mitch, I saw suffering and death. I saw
people live through situations so crushingly unfair that it was impossible
that the universe bore no witness, impossible that there was no God who could
wipe tears away and effect justice on the last day. I saw people find within
themselves nobility to overcome, as well, and heard them say the strength
came from a source beyond their own.
These are not things children have to think about.
Easter tells us of something children can't understand, because it addresses
things they don't yet have to know: the weariness of life, the pain, the
profound loneliness and hovering fear of meaninglessness. Yet in the midst of
this desolation we find Jesus, triumphant over death and still shockingly
alive, present to us in ways we cannot understand much less explain. In him
we find vibrancy of life, and a firm compassion that does not deny our
suffering but transforms and illuminates it. He is life itself. As life
incarnate, he could not be held back by death.
"O Death, where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory?" wrote St. John
Chrysostom, in a 4th century sermon still used in every Orthodox church on
Pascha (our name for Easter).
"Christ is risen, and you are overthrown.
"Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen.
"Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice.
"Christ is risen, and life reigns.
"Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave."
On Pascha we will sing, over and over, dozens of times, "Christ is risen from
the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs
bestowing life." It is not a children's song. But grownups are taller, and
can see farther, and know what hard blows life can bring. Easter may seem
boring to children, and it is blessedly unencumbered by the silly fun that
plagues Christmas. Yet it contains the one thing needful for every human
life: the good news of Resurrection.
Easter didn't change anything? Easter changes everything.
*******************************
Frederica Mathewes-Green
www.frederica.com
