More interesting things about Easter

I found a fun article on the Top 10 Things You Didn't Know About Easter. Actually, I more or less knew about all but two of them (bet you can't guess which two!), but I suppose that sort of goes with the territory.

By the way, so far as I can tell, egg rolling involves propelling an egg along the ground with a spoon. I suppose it must be some sort of race. Am I the only one who thinks this sounds funny?

~Pastor Sarah

Happy Easter, day 2

I thought about posting nothing but "Happy Easter" for the next 50 days, but I decided against it. It might start to get tedious by about day 27 or so. (Easter, of course, could never be boring, but one of the advantages of having such a long Easter season is that we celebrate it in lots of different ways, not just one way lots of times. That said, I still haven't been able to figure out what an egg roll is, or what it actually has to do with Easter.)

The number "50" is pretty significant. For one thing, it's longer than Lent (even if you count the Sundays), so 40 days in the wilderness are neatly surpassed by 50 days celebrating the risen Lord. In fact, it's the longest festival season of the church year, and with good reason. (The so-called "season after Pentecost" does not count, as it technically isn't a season so much as a lack of a season.) In popular understanding Lent tends to be associated by Jesus' death (although it actually involves much more than that), so the length of the Easter season is just one more indication that in Christ, life triumphs over death.

There are other, more complicated reasons for the number of days to be 50, of course. It goes back to the significance of the umber seven, the number of days it took for God to create the earth and all its creatures (and then have a day of rest)--so seven is the number of completion and perfection. 49 days, or 7x7, a week of weeks, is completion multiplied by completion, perfection multiplied by perfection. And then, when you've come up wnith the most perfect number imaginable...you add one. It's fully, totally complete...and you add one more. That's Easter. That's the resurrection. It's the +1 that really hints at what God is about in this season (and in all seasons). So it is fitting and appropriate that we would take that many days to celebrate the resurrection--no less would do!

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By sheer coincidence (no, really, it is the sort of thing I would do, but I didn't, this time), this is also my 50th published post on this blog. Sometimes these things happen.

~Pastor Sarah

Happy Easter!

Easter, it turns out, lasts for 50 days.

And yes, I intend to say "Happy Easter" on all of them.

~Pastor Sarah

Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

I love this line, which is one of the traditional responses to the eucharistic prayer. If you are looking for a concise, easy-to-remember proclamation of the gospel, you can't really improve on, "Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again." That's pretty much the whole gospel story right there, waiting to be unpacked. Which is more or less what Maundy Thursday is getting at, when you get right down to it. (If you're not sure what I mean, I will be happy to explain, but I had better not do it right now, or I won't make it to the Maundy Thursday service at 7 o'clock.)

In completely unrelated news, I recently happened to stumble across a blog for Gettysburg Seminary, which doesn't have very many posts, but they have excellent taste in blogger templates, don't you think?

~Pastor Sarah

Resources for Holy Week

In case I get too busy over the next few days (it could happen), here are some resources for prayer and devotions (and study) for the remainder of Holy Week:

• Readings and prayers for the Three Days (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Vigil of Easter). If you are unable to make it to work and/or are looking for something more substantial for personal devotions during these days, reading through all or some of the vigil readings would make an excellent study. The readings are designed to evoke the full sweep of salvation history.


• An article on Maundy Thursday that gives some background on the name (but is otherwise somewhat incomplete).


• And one on Good Friday, which is somewhat better.


• Lent/Holy Week/Easter resources compiled on an ELCIC site.


• Lent resources from Anglicans Online.

~Pastor Sarah

April newsletter

Is it just me, or does Lent always seem to drag on for more than just the prescribed forty days? Maybe it’s just the weather. After weeks of snow-covered ground and sub-zero temperatures, I know I ought to appreciate that at least it isn’t so terribly cold, that we are able to travel more safely, and that we are not at high risk for flooding. But still, it’s hard to get enthusiastic about gray skies, dreary forecasts, and snow that is no longer enough to make the yard look pretty again.

I don’t think it’s entirely an accident that we always hit this time of year during Lent. This is the season when, more than any other time of year, we look to the cross. Understandably, reflection on Jesus’ death and what it means for us can get a little gloomy. But without Jesus’ death, we wouldn’t have Jesus’ resurrection—so we spend a little time in the shadow of the cross, year after year, just when the skies are the grayest and the weather least encouraging.

If that were all that Lent was about, it would be unbearable, crazy, pointless. The cross, out of context, would be too terrible for prolonged contemplation. But even as we hear again the story of Jesus’ suffering and death, we never quite forget that Easter is just around the corner! We know that this death, this cross, leads not just to the tomb but to the empty tomb, not just to the grave but to glorious new life, for Jesus and for all of us, the people he came to save.

Every year, then, the whole of creation echoes that great story—descending to the grave in winter, and rising again to new life each spring. Death, first—and then, always, resurrection. Those of us who are privileged to live with regular seasons get to see this acted out each year, as winter inevitably gives way to spring—not as soon as we would like it, sometimes, but always, in the end, it comes.

So, yes, it’s a little gloomy for the moment. But it won’t always be. This, too, will end. Easter is coming!

~Pastor Sarah

Happy April!

There will be no fish on this blog, although apparently there were some at the Lenten supper at Fron last night. (I was there just long enough to obtain one.) Otherwise, there was not a whole lot of April Fool's joking, possibly because it's the week before Holy Week, and we have other things on our minds. The kids at our after-school program were in rare form, however.

Palm Sunday is fast approaching, with Easter fast on its heels. Since I know more folks will be in town for Holy Week and Easter, here's the schedule:
Maundy Thursday:
6:00 seder/worship at Fron
7:00 worship at the nursing home (Immanuel/Indherred), and at St. Johns
Good Friday:
7:00 CrossWind choir Cantata at Fron
Easter:
6:30 Sunrise service at Fron
7:30 Easter breakfast at Fron
8:45 Easter services at Immanuel, Indherred
10:45 Easter services at Fron, St. Johns

~Pastor Sarah