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Have you
ever tried to figure out when Easter comes? I mean, if calendars
didn't come with the Holy Days and holidays all marked, how
would you fare?
I'll even
give you the formula for figuring it out. Are you ready for
this? I quote from a copyrighted appointment calendar I saved
from a few years ago: "Easter falls on the first Sunday
following the arbitrary Paschal Full Moon, which does not
necessarily coincide with a real or astronomical full moon.
The Paschal Full Moon is calculated by adding 1 to the remainder
obtained by dividing the year by 19 and applying the following
table." There then followed a list of dates with numbers
from 1 to 19 beside them. The same publication told me that
Easter could be as early as March 23 and as late as April
25. I never did figure it out.
Then I
checked my encyclopedia and that took three columns to tell
me about it. But I figured that was more than you really wanted
to know! If you are like me, it hasn't really mattered very
much. Not once have I ever tried to figure out when Easter
comes. I just wait until the next year's calendar comes out
- or dig out my little ecclesiastical crib sheet; I have one
now that gives me the date of Easter through the year 2020!
Which was why I really saved that appointment book!
There
have been times when I wearied of all this mystery and would
have readily voted to have the church take charge of Easter
and settle on a regular Sunday about this time in April. I
like the symbolism of buds and blossoms at Easter time and,
living in Michigan, this is about as soon as you can bank
on things like that with much regularity. But that would be
a very selfish reason, and wouldn't offer much advantage to
folks in the southern hemisphere.
But one
day I got to wondering if there might not be some value in
this seeming mystery about the date of Easter. Perhaps the
fluctuations of the date can serve as a reminder that there
is a quality about Easter that is not so easily predicted.
There is a sense in which Easter sets its own time.
Consider
that first Easter. Christ did not appear to the multitudes
gathered in Jerusalem for Passover. There was no dramatic
announcement, no leaking of the news of some impending extravaganza
to the press, no special music, no record crowds. Nor did
Christ appear to those who did see him all at once. Easter
came to Mary early in the morning as she came to the garden
in the depth of her grief (John 20:15-16); it came to the
disciples cowering in fear behind locked doors (John 20:19);
it came to two travelers on the road to Emmaus as they expressed
their disillusionment, saying, "We had hoped that he
(Jesus) was the One to redeem Israel" (Luke 24:21). Christ
appeared to some of the disciples as they were fishing on
the Sea of Galilee (John 21:1ff). And as Paul said in his
letter to the Corinthians, several years after that first
Easter Day, "He appeared to me, as one born out of due
time" (I Corinthians 15:8).
May I
suggest that Easter really comes whenever and wherever people
meet the Risen Christ. There is no fixed date or stated place
for that!
Easter
still comes in the midst of people's grief as it came to Mary
Magdalene. We picture the tomb of Christ in a lovely setting,
a garden, in fact. The old hymn, "In the Garden,"
that is a favorite of so many is really in memory of this
Resurrection story, but there was no singing that morning.
Spring is earlier in Jerusalem than it is in Michigan and
there were no doubt flowers blooming and trees in leaf, but
Mary heard no message from nature that morning. She wasn't
there to smell the roses, dewy or not. She came, along with
the other women, to anoint a dead body. There was no helpful
mortician service to take care of those things then and help
the mourners through their grief by their artful touches to
cover the starkness of death. This was women's work in those
days, as so much of the unpleasantness was - and often still
is.
Mary was
weeping, so that she did not at first recognize who spoke
to her; she thought it was a gardener. Anyone have a problem
with that? I don't. I have been to cemeteries; it is much
more reasonable to find a workman there than a resurrected
loved one. Mary's thoughts were so fixed on the tomb that
she had no room in her heart for gladness. It was then that
Easter came for her.
I have
seen it and heard it at gravesides again and again. In the
midst of tears and grief, and not in any denial of the pain
and loss, there comes a presence that so sustains that loved
ones say to me, again and again, "How can those without
faith stand times like this?" I have no answer to their
question, nor do they really expect one from me. They are
simply giving thanks that Easter has come.
The message
of Easter is not just a "cheer up, things will get better"
kind of word. Those easy admonitions do not always hold up
in real life. Charles Schultz had a Peanuts strip once
that showed Lucy was again in her psychiatric booth, offering
advice for a nickel, and her most regular customer, Charlie
Brown, was registering a complaint!
"You
said that clouds always have a silver lining," Charlie
says. "Look at this." And he hands her a dark fringed
cloud. Lucy takes the cloud, turns it about a bit and replies,
"I think I see the problem. What we have here is a defective
cloud."
There
are quite a few defective clouds in our world if our only
hope lies in things getting better. But whether Easter comes
in the midst of our grief or our fears or our disillusionments,
the message is more than one of hoping that things will get
better. Easter speaks to the heart of the matter.
Easter
recognizes that without the hope that the Resurrection promises,
all our other aspirations are empty platitudes. Easter speaks
to the ultimate meaning of things, not just to the hope that
things might get better after awhile. I saw a cartoon the
other day that showed a worshiper coming out of church on
Easter and saying to the minister, "You're in a rut,
Rev. Every time I come here you are talking about the resurrection!"
The Resurrection
is not a rut. It is the channel that brings the water of life
to the barren deserts of existence. As Paul said, "If
Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain
and your faith is in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:14). Easter
is the word that undergirds the faith, and Easter comes whenever
and wherever we meet the risen Christ - in cemeteries, in
gardens, in closed rooms, on dusty highways or in the midst
of our work.
Walter
Wangerin, Jr., in his book The Manger Is Empty, tells
what at first might seem to be a Christmas tale, but is really
an Easter story. It concerns his eight year old daughter,
Mary, and a Christmas pageant at the church where he was pastor.
On the
Sunday before Christmas the children of the church, his daughter
among them, went caroling to some of the shut-ins of their
congregation. One of the places they visited was the local
hospital, and it was there that they had met Odessa Williams.
The children hadn't known her before, but in those brief moments
something magical happened and she had captured their hearts.
Odessa Williams was a black lady who had been a faithful member
of that congregation for many years, but for more years than
these children had lived, she had been shut in at home. When
they visited her in the hospital, she was dying of cancer.
Pastor
Wangerin describes the scene in the hospital and the magic
that Odessa Williams wove around those children, his daughter,
Mary, especially, it seemed. They sang for her as only children
can sometimes sing, with all the innocence and affection of
their years. Their music got through the weariness and languor
of Odessa Williams' spirit as she lay there on her bed; and
then the spirit of Odessa Williams got through to them. Too
weary to lift her arms, she began to direct their singing
with her fingers and she pulled a whole new music from their
souls. Then she spoke to them. Let Pastor Wangerin tell it:
"Oh,
children, you my choir," she said. "Every las'
one of you. And listen me," she said. She caught them
one by one on the barb of her eye. "Ain' no one stand
in front of you for goodness, no! You the bes', babies!
You the final bes'."
The
children gazed at her, and the children believed her absolutely,
and my Mary, too, believed what she was hearing, heart and
soul.
"Listen
me," Odessa said. "When you sing, wherever you
sing, whoever's sittin' down in front when you sing - I'm
there too. I tell you truly; I alluz been with you. I alluz
will be. And how can I say such a mackulous thing?"
She lowered her voice. Her eyelids drooped a minimal degree.
"Why, `cause we in Jesus. Babies, babies, we be in
Jesus, old ones, young ones, us and you together. Jesus,
he hold us in his hand, and Jesus, no - he don' never let
one of us go. He don' never let one of us go. Never. Never.
Not ever..."
So spoke
Odessa in a dim and shadowed night. So said the lady with
such conviction and such a determined love for children
whom she's never met till now, but whom she's followed in
her heart, that these same children rolled tears from their
wide open eyes, and they were not ashamed.
Odessa
Williams died three days after the children had visited her,
two days before Christmas. Because of the holiday and the
coming weekend, the funeral had to be on the day before Christmas.
Eight year old Mary had heard about it and insisted on going
to the funeral. She had wept, especially when she saw the
snowflakes coming down and told her father tearfully that
there was going to be snow in Miz Williams grave. She wept
again at the cemetery.
Now the
funeral was over and it was time for the pageant. Pastor Wangerin's
Mary was to be Mary in the Christmas story and, thinking of
her grief, her father had asked her if they should get someone
else to do the part. But she had said no and the pageant began.
The angels
came and giggled and sang; the shepherds came and fidgeted
and stared; the wise men came tripping on their bathrobes
and left their gifts. But the pastor barely saw any of it.
His eyes were fixed on his daughter. Her brief lines came
out almost inaudible, even when he knew what they were. "My
soul doth magnify the Lord." But Mary the eight year
old was not doing any magnifying. He saw her staring intently
at the manger where a stuffed doll lay, wrapped in a diaper.
He saw
her begin to frown. The frown grew more intense and then she
reached out and touched the doll. In the paralysis that only
a parent can know when their child is up in front that way,
he saw her reach down and pick the doll up by one leg and
walk off to the side of the chancel and through the door,
the doll hanging like a wet dish towel at her side. People
made little noises in their throats, but before he could make
up his mind to go after her, she was back. Without the doll.
She went
up the stairs as light as air and knelt before the manger,
with her hands together and her face as radiant as that first
Mary long ago. There was a shine of tears on her face again,
but they were different tears and her father found himself
saying to himself, "Mary, what do you see? What do you
know that your father could not tell you? Mary, mother of
the infant Jesus, teach me too." Later, in the car, driving
home, she taught him.
"Dad,"
she said, "Jesus wasn't in the manger. That wasn't Jesus.
That was a doll. Jesus, he doesn't have to be in the manger,
does he? He came from heaven, and he was borned there; but
when he was done he went back to heaven again, and because
he came and went he can be coming and going all the
time, right?"
"Right,"
her father whispered.
"The
manger is empty," Mary said. And then she said, "Dad,
Miz Williams' box is empty too. We don't have to worry about
no snow. It's only a doll in her box. It's like a big doll,
Dad, and we put it away today. If Jesus can cross, if Jesus
can go across, then Miz Williams crossed the same way, too,
with Jesus..."
And the
words of Odessa Williams came back to him: "Babies, babies,
we be in Jesus, old ones, young ones, us and you together.
Jesus, he hold us in his hand, and Jesus, no - he don' never
let one of us go. Never. Never. Not ever..."
When does
Easter come?
Easter
comes whenever and wherever people meet the Risen Christ.
It can even come on Christmas; it can even come on Easter;
it can even come in church - or before a garden tomb.
Have you
had your Easter yet? It's a day worth singing "Alleluias"
for! Can you say AMEN to that?
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