You might have finished eating up all those jelly beans and chocolate eggs but Easter has only just begun. It’s not like an early spring day that fades into storms.
Easter is forever.
We associate Easter with spring–naturally–because here in the Northern Hemisphere the two go hand in hand. Easter eggs and daffodils on the new green grass with the sun blazing in the sky.
But what if Easter happened at a different season?
Two years ago my wife and I celebrated Easter at a South African monastery. It was a magical experience, getting up with the brothers in the early morning hours to await the dawn.
The sun rose, shining in the chapel window just as we exclaimed, “The Lord is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.”
The rolling hills were gorgeous, the grass tall and golden, the bushes a reddish green. But no new buds on the trees, no daffodils. Why? Because on that bottom half of the world it was fall. Not spring.
Still we sang our Alleluias and ate our Easter eggs. The experience reminded me of how God meant this holiday to say that all our expectations are reversed, fall or spring.
“For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him,” the apostle Paul wrote. “The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.”
Once for all. Unlike the seasons which are cyclical. Spring will be followed by summer, by fall and then by winter. They repeat themselves. But the Resurrection is once for all time. Forever.
Happy Easter! You can say that today, tomorrow, in the heat of July, in the bitter cold of January, in any continent in any season in any time zone. Easter is always here. It’s forever.
If you do have a few more chocolate eggs to munch on, hand ‘em over. I love them. At any season!
