People say there are Good Friday Christians and Easter Christians. If so, I am firmly in the Good Friday camp. I came back to the Christian church during Lent, longing for austerity, structure, and sacrifice in my spiritual life. That year, the Good Friday liturgy broke my heart open and grace streamed into it. Since then, I anticipate the catharsis of Good Friday with a sorrowful longing. As I weep in the darkened, black-draped sanctuary and grieve for the hate that humanity commits upon itself, God sloughs away the calluses of my soul and I feel the pain of all the victims. Good Friday breaks my heart open to empathy for the least of these--I emerge, more raw, more vulnerable, and more loving.
The grief of Good Friday feels more natural to me than the celebration of Easter Sunday. I have a difficult time connecting with the joy. Part of it is personal history. Easter was the last time I saw my father alive. In 2005, we spent the holiday together during his 18 month-long battle with cancer. I knew he was weakening, but he was still in strong spirits with good quality of life when I left him. A few days later, he couldn’t walk. The tumor on his spine paralyzed him. A few weeks later, the cancer overtook his body and he lost the fight. So, for me, Easter begins a period of mourning that concludes on May 7, the anniversary of my father’s death. Every year since, I attend church, I sing, “Christ the Lord has risen today”; however, I fear I lack that “Easter spirit”.
If the spirituality of Easter is a challenge for me, the secular celebration of Easter seems absolutely ridiculous. Admittedly, in my regular life, I’m somewhat of a party pooper. I dislike most celebrations that require more planning than a casual beer and burger with friends. Easter is a big loser on the cost-benefit party analysis. I am supposed to color eggs which I do not want to eat, hide eggs which I do not want to look for, and purchase candy which will only make me fat. Not to mention that the Easter Bunny is full-on weird. Why on earth does a bunny deliver eggs? It is embarrassing that the culmination of the Christian faith is reduced to a middle-aged man in a bunny suit distributing candy. I prefer my holidays dignified, or at least a little less bizarre. This year, however, my Easter eggstravaganza is in full force. We will baptize my youngest son, with all the pomp and circumstance that entails. I am up to my armpits in Easter this year-- all the spiritual and secular celebration: hymns, Easter lilies, baptisms, christening outfits, new clothes, Easter bunnies, egg hunts, food and drink. I just can’t escape the festivities this time and somehow, I wonder if it’s all meant to be. Perhaps this is the year that I find my “Easter spirit”, that my Easter Grinch heart grows three sizes.
This is the year we celebrate my adorable little son, the joy of my life that I didn’t know I needed until he arrived. This is the year I celebrate surprise, the life of my newborn baby, and the life I have found in the resurrection of Christ Jesus. If I had my druthers, my life would be routine, predictable, and follow a prescribed plan. Work, family, church, and other pursuits would fit nicely into my schedule. I could look ahead for the next ten years or so, crossing items off my to-do list as I plod through the days. No need for fanfare or disruption. But, God doesn’t give me my druthers, God gives me a life. Life doesn’t fit into my google calendar and my budget spreadsheet. Life is messy, joyous, and ridiculous. Life is unpredictable blessings--snotty-nosed, sassy-mouthed, sleep-depriving, adorable, loving blessings. Life takes my organized, predictable satisfaction and raises the stakes. Life sprinkles my contentment with craziness. Sorrow and joy disrupt my plans, and in the eye of the disruption, in the midst of the ridiculous, in the heart of the disbelief, I find God.
I expect that Easter didn’t fit into the plans of the disciples, either. They thought they were getting a messiah who would defeat the Romans, not a martyr crucified as a criminal. If the tragedy didn’t make sense, the triumph was absolutely mystifying. Christ was back, but he still wasn’t liberating Israel. He was liberating souls, which is much more difficult to understand, much more ridiculous. I can imagine Peter and his friends saying, “OK, now we have a risen Lord. What do we do with him?” Even for believers, Easter requires a leap of faith, faith that God loves ALL the sinners, faith that good will continue to defeat evil, faith that, in the face of discord and hatred, love still wins.
Perhaps this is the year when my sorrow turns to joy, when I allow myself to come out from the Good Friday mourning clothes into my Easter bonnet, when I lay down my grief over the death of my father and take up my joy in the birth of my son. After all, Easter isn’t just one day of gladness and gluttony. When that stone rolled away, it didn’t roll back again--the world was changed forever. Perhaps Easter celebrations are ridiculous because Easter itself is ridiculous. It is completely ridiculous that the God of all creation would love the silly, selfish human race enough to become human incarnate. It is completely ridiculous that this God would then allow those misguided, scared, selfish human beings to kill him. It is completely ridiculous that this God would descend into hell and rise again, resurrected in form, whole in body, to restore grace to all those who are lost. We don’t worship a God that makes sense, that sticks to the routine, that follows the rules; we worship God in Jesus Christ, who surprises us with an embarrassment of ridiculous riches in the grace of Easter.
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