I’ve to do the strangest thing today. I’ve to record the resurrection ahead of time.
We are in the middle of Lent at the moment, which means worship in a lovely subdued mode, preaching of the passion on Sunday and a generally sub fusc mood. Yet I’ve agreed to a recording of a service for Easter Day on Radio Scotland and today is the day for making it all happen.
Its very difficult to get your head around what it feels like to celebrate the resurrection on Easter Day without going through Holy Week. Its going to feel as though we’ve gone through a short cut and then as soon as the recording is over, will need to reverse out of it again.
It reminds me a little of an Anglican church which I visited in Egypt when I was on a scholarship trip before I was ordained. The thing was, the English speaking Sunday morning congregation kept the same calendar as the Western Church whilst at least one of the Arabic speaking congregations, which met later on a Sunday, kept the local Coptic date for Easter. (Yes, that’s right, Anglicans had managed to exist in full communion for years yet didn’t even agree on Easter Day, something much more fundamental than current disputes). I can remember being astonished to hear that congregations of the same church kept different Calendars and then bewildered at the liturgical realities of it. Those with Western Easter would sometimes have Easter whilst the Coptic Calendar Anglicans would still be in Lent. Imagine, decorating the church with flowers and celebrating the resurrection with trumpet and ta-ra only to have to tone it down for later in the day for a congregation who were unable yet to proclaim the Good News of the Resurrection.
I always feel a little subjunctive on Holy Saturday – feeling that we must clean and polish the church just in case he rises. I guess that is what is going on in today’s recording too. We’ll make a recording of what Easter will sound like just in case we find in a few weeks that death has been broken and the stone been rolled away.
We’ll take a chance on it, I guess.
Good luck with the recording. I think from what I seen of your style you will manage the task of recording Easter in advance perfectly well.
I enjoyed a very productive visit to Egypt last year. The Copts are great fun and wonderfully welcoming. I dont think they would agree with you that the day we celebrate Easter is more important than issues that touch of the person of Christ and God.
Hhhhhhmmmmmnnnnn……..
And yet……. EVERY Sunday is a new beginning, a new Easter….. of itself………and …….. every DAY is a new Easter, a new beginning…….. which suggests we are well used to holding such apparently contradictory factors as Lent/not Lent, and Easter/Not Easter in an ongoing permanent tension (or is it balance ?).
And yet…….
Yes, I agree with you, Fr Andrew, this BlogFather is more accomplished than he allows himself credit, and will manage the task set before him most adroitly.
And because Death HAS – and yet still WILL be broken, and the stone which HAS, yet WILL be rolled, WILL ROLL, and Easter, having happened, and happening even as we consider, WILL yet happen, I suspect that the BlogFather will nonetheless BE surprised – all over again.
One Of God’s Miracles, methinks.
May we all be granted such a gift of surprise.
(AND – Wouldn’t it be miraculous if The Church – including the Anglican Church – would accept surgery when necessary, and then move on from contemplating the navel, fretting over freckles, grieving over goosebumps, and get on with it’s task of BEING the Body Of Christ……)
PS. Go fer it, BlogFather – ENJOY !
Father Andrew, I am trying to behave when we disagree over interpretation, but nothing in Kelvin’s post says that he cares more about the day we celebrate Easter than ‘issues that touch the person of Christ and God’. You seem to be setting up a false polarity, and I’m not sure what you hope to accomplish by it.