Waiting for Easter
It’s 9:40pm on Saturday night…just a few more hours until Easter. It’s funny how we take things for granted and it’s always surprising the things that shock us out of that attitude.
As I sit here typing, I’ve got all the mundane prep work for Easter all but done. Plastic eggs and candy waiting on the kids to go to bed? Check. Easter feast ready for the cooking tomorrow? Check. Easter eggs colored? In progress. Clean dressy clothes for all the kids (and myself) to wear to Mass tomorrow? Umm…three out of four ain’t bad? That’s the kind of Easter that we take for granted…it’s just a day to get together with family, go to church (if you’re so inclined), and eat a lot of food. Maybe play football in the yard with the kids or something like that.
In contrast, I took Good Friday off from work and went to church (not Mass…it’s the one day of the year that there is no Mass). Every Good Friday service I’ve ever attended since becoming Catholic has included a hymn called “The Wood of the Cross” – I think that’s what it’s called. I don’t know for sure, but I could sing it for you in a pinch. This particular hymn is always very solomn. It is sung as the cross is carried down the center aisle of the church. There are three pauses where everybody genuflects. This year, I was almost moved to tears, and were it not for my own hangups about crying in front of people I would have.
There wasn’t anything any more particularly poignant about the service this year. In fact, it was not the greatest rendition of the hymn I’ve ever heard (ahem…our Pastor sings a little off key). Neither was it the most solomn procession of the cross, though that was nicely done I thought. So why did it strike such a deep chord with me this year? I looked at the cross and it really sunk home that He really died for me. Me personally…Beau Jackson…38 year old computer-geek-red-neck. How do you ever repay that? How do you ever even begin to say “thank you” for something like that. The fact is you can’t. All you can do is try your best to live the way He would want you to, to say “I’m sorry” when you fail, and get back up and try again.
One of the other things I try to do every Good Friday is watch The Passion of the Christ. Mostly I’ve done that as a reminder of what Christ went through for me and everyone else, because it’s all too easy to forget, to get tied up with the mundane facets of Easter. I didn’t watch it this year. I think maybe the point has finally sunk home.
It’s now 10:01…two more hours. May you all have a very blessed Easter.
