"I regard it as absurd and unjustifiable that we should spend forty days keeping Lent, pondering what it means, preaching about self-denial... bringing it all to a peak with Holy Week, which in turn climaxes in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday . . . and then, after a rather odd Holy Saturday, we have a single day of celebration...
"Easter week itself ought to be an eight-day festival, with champagne served after morning prayer or even before, with lots of alleluias and extra hymns and spectacular anthems. Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don't throw our hats in the air?... It's long overdue that we took a hard look at how we keep Easter in church, at home, in our personal lives, right through the system. And if it means rethinking some cherished habits, well, maybe it's time to wake up...
"And while we're about it, we might write some more good Easter hymns and take care to choose the many good ones already written that celebrate what Easter really is rather than treating it as simply our ticket to a blissful life hereafter... We should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children's games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind. This is our greatest festival.
"Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don't have a New Testament; you don't have a Christianity; as Paul says, you are still in your sins. We shouldn't allow the secular world, with its parareligious events and its cute Easter bunnies to blow us off course. This is our greatest day. We should put the flags out.
"If Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up. Champagne for breakfast again- well, of course. Christian holiness was never meant to be merely negative. Of course you have to weed the garden from time to time; sometimes the ground ivy may need serious digging before you can get it out. That's Lent for you. But you don't want simply to turn the garden back into a neat bed of blank earth. Easter is the time to sow new seeds and to plant out a few cuttings... Easter should mean planting, watering, and training up things in your life (personal and corporate) that ought to be blossoming, filling the garden with color and perfume, and in due course bearing fruit."
N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope. Chapter 15 Introduction: Celebrating Easter.
Some food for thought. Holy Week and the Triduum were really intense and serious for me. So I am delighted to say that my friends and I actually did spend Easter gardening in the warm sunshine, sipping wine, cooking lamb, singing songs, and going to big feasts. Friends and family, you are lovely.
I'm also delighted to say that my Confirmation and First Communion are on Easter Friday. I've been waiting a long time!
Spring is exciting. Easter is exciting. Life is exciting.
