We can still smile

Dear Friends

After “attending” church at our Washington National Cathedral, watching our El Camino Real Diocesan Easter Service and then doing some “Youtube Church Hopping” throughout the day---I would just like to bring you Easter greetings in a different and light way, through the two cartoons above. The caption to the second one is "What I don't get is how one minute we're a symbol of new life and the next minutes we're a sandwich".

Today, Easter Monday, and the entire week through this coming Sunday (which was once called “Bright Sunday”), has many rich traditions.  For centuries, in Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant countries, the week was observed by the faithful as "days of joy and laughter", with parties and picnics to celebrate Jesus' resurrection. Churchgoers and pastors played practical jokes on each other, drenched each other with water, told jokes, sang, and danced. The customs were rooted in the musings of early church theologians (like Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom) who suggested that God played a practical joke on the devil by raising Jesus from the dead. "Risus paschalis - the Easter laugh," they called it. It reminds me of that phrase from the first verse of the hymn “Glorious things of thee are spoken”:“thou mayest smile at all thy foes”.

I am not suggesting that any of these traditions are appropriate this year, as we continue to live through a time of global anxiety and suffering. We have so many to pray for including those making the greatest sacrifices of all. We continue to shelter in place and wear masks when we do go out, for love of neighbor and those who have to go to work.

But even in the middle of this deadly pandemic, we need to find reasons to smile and bring some joy to others-----like the sun breaking through clouds.  

John