How are you coming with your Easter discipline?
Most of you heard my Easter Day sermon and may remember that I reminded us all of the opportunity to celebrate the Great Fifty Days of Easter, to observe a holy Easter season with celebration.
We don’t do a very good job celebrating the Easter season. Partly I think we just haven’t been reminded often enough or given the specific tools and practices of holy celebration. And I don’t think we’re good at sustained celebration. We think of celebration as a blitz, blow your whole wad, sort of thing. We don’t know how to celebrate for fifty whole days.
In our corporate worship we do keep this season as a special season of holy celebration. For one thing, we say excessive alleluias. During Lent, of course, we refrain from saying alleluia altogether. During most of the church year, we say it sparingly in worship at singularly wondrous times like the breaking of the bread. But during the Great Fifty Days of Easter we say alleluia exuberantly, excessively, every chance that we get. We have the wonderful alleluia banner hanging in the back of the church. We say it at the beginning of worship, at the end of worship, and over and over every chance we get. In our worship, Easter season is recognizable as a time of abundant alleluias.
The Paschal Candle also burns at every occasion of our parish worship during the Great Fifty Days of Easter. The light of Christ is always within our sight during the Easter season.
I had a professor in seminary who had personal practice that he followed in worship during the Easter season. During these Great Fifty Days he stood to receive communion. There is historical and liturgical justification for the practice. Charlie knew that. But for us… look at the risen Christ and imagine his outstretched arms raising you up. These Great Fifty days we celebrate that we have been raised with him. Consider for yourself, celebrating that awesome wonder by standing during Easter season.
Pick some Easter discipline, some practice to mark these fifty days in your life beyond our worship here. We tend to think of “discipline” as negative or unpleasant. But the point of discipline is always to create something good. Celebration is good. And there’s nothing negative or unpleasant about it. But we do need practice. We need to commit ourselves to the discipline of holy celebration.
Throughout these Great Fifty Days, try treating yourself like God treats you. It’s about living into God’s desire for you. Find some practice of holy celebration that God would applaud. For fifty days, treat yourself like God treats you.
During this past Easter week, on Wednesday these words were posted for reflection on Episcopal Café. They were written by St. Augustine of Hippo back in the fourth century (not the most celebratory of eras in human history).
Sing with your voices,
Sing with your hearts,
Sing with your lips,
Sing with your lives.
“Sing to the Lord a new song.”
Do you ask what you should sing about the one whom you love?
Of course you want to sing about the one you love.
Do you ask what you should sing in praise of him?
Listen:
“His praise is in the assembly of the saints.”
The singer himself is the praise contained in the song.
Do you want to speak the praise of God?
Be yourself what you speak.
If you live good lives,
you are his praise.
Be praise. Live praise.
What does that mean in practical terms? What does it mean to live praise? What sort of holy practices might we undertake for Easter? I’m still thinking. I encourage to consider what sort of Easter discipline might work for you to celebrate these great Fifty Days of resurrection joy. Think, perhaps, in the terms I outlined on Easter Day: Praise, feasting and shared celebration. The goal is the experience the goodness of God’s gift. In Easter God has burst the dam of sin and death; waters of new life are rushing around us. But we have to turn on the tap in our own lives. It isn’t a matter of being cheerful or superficially glad or drawing smiley faces everywhere. You don’t have to be happy to celebrate Easter. It’s about choosing a practice, a discipline that celebrates God’s gift of new life.
A few ideas. As I read and studied C. S. Lewis’ book the Screwtape Letters this Lent, I was struck by the contrast he drew between hell as a place of noise and heaven as a place of music. For me, an Easter discipline would be to enjoy good music. Every single one of the great fifty days. What a glorious celebration.
Or feast. Holy feasting isn’t about quantity or even calories. It’s about enjoying good food. In Isaiah it says that the Lord will prepare a feast of rich foods and well-aged wines, strained clear. Good food, produced from the rich bounty of God’s creation. Make it a practice during these great fifty days to feast on good food.
Or relish relationships. Establish the discipline of time together. To enjoy the blessing and life that God gives in relationships, especially friends and family. Celebrate how, in God’s math, one plus one equals infinity. Share the Great Fifty Days with others.
For those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, Easter always comes at the time when the earth is awakening to the new life of spring. We draw images of Easter from the flowers of spring and the new buds green growth we see all around. What about an Easter discipline of planting? Seeing spring as more than just symbols for Easter and actually doing something to be a part of that new life and growth. Sow something each of the Great Fifty days.
In general, live generously. It’s a great joy to live generously. Easter is all about celebrating God’s abundantly generous gift to us of new life. Live it.
As we look at the church calendar over the course of the entire year, the longest time span, by far, is what we call “ordinary time.” There are many more Sundays in ordinary time than in any of the special seasons like Advent or Christmas or Lent. And that’s good. God is certainly present in the ordinary times of our lives. But there is nothing ordinary about Easter season. This is an extraordinary time. Fifty Great Days to celebrate the resurrection, to celebrate our identity as Easter people. Celebrate this extraordinary season in your life. Alleluia.
