Celebrating: Easter Long after the Candy is Gone

Forgiveness and celebration are at the heart of community. These are the two faces of love. Celebration is a communal experience of joy, a song of thanksgiving. We celebrate the fact of being together; we give thanks for the gifts we have been given. Celebration nourishes us, restores hope, and brings us the strength to live with the suffering and difficulties of everyday life. The poorer people are, the more they love to celebrate. The festivals of the poorest people in Africa last for several days. They use all their savings on huge feasts and beautiful clothes. They make garlands of flowers and they set off fireworks - for light and explosions are an integral part of celebration. These festivals nearly always commemorate a divine or religious event - they are sacred occasions.

In richer countries we have lost the art of celebrating. People go to movies or watch television or have other leisure activities; they go to parties, but they do not celebrate.

Rich societies have lost their sense of tradition and so their sense of celebration as well. Celebration is linked to family and religious tradition. As soon as it gets away from this, it tends to become artificial, and people need stimulants like alcohol to get it moving. Then it is no longer a celebration. It may be a party, where we come together to eat and drink, but when we dance it is usually in couples and often alone. We have become spectators. Our society has its theatres, cinema, and television. But it has lost its sense of celebration.

Celebration is the specific act of a community as people rejoice and give thanks to the Father for he has bonded them together; he is looking after them and loves them. They are no longer individuals locked up in their own loneliness and independence. They are one body and each of them has their place in the body. Celebration is a cry of joy from all of them covenanted together, for they have been led through the passage of loneliness to love, of discouragement to hope...

Celebration is nourishment and resource. It makes present the goals of the community in symbolic form, and so brings hope and a new strength to take up again everyday life with more love. Celebration is a sign of the resurrection which gives us strength to carry the cross of each day. There is an intimate bond between celebration and the cross.
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From excerpts of Jean Vanier's Community and Growth, ‘Chapter 11: Celebration,’ pgs.313-314. Jean Vanier was a French Catholic who started the first L’Arche Community in Trosly-Breuil, France. L’Arche means ‘The Ark’ in French. Currently L'Arche has communities worldwide. In L’Arche communities Christians come together to live in solidarity with the poor and to take care of the severely and profoundly mentally retarded. The well-known author Henri Nouwen particpated in L’Arche communities in the States while teaching and writing. The communities are over 25 years old and continue to grow. Vanier gave an interview to the CBC regarding L'Arche for the 25th anniversary of the communities. There are even communties in places such as Huntsville, AL, and Tampa, FL. To learn more about Jean Vanier and the L'Arche communities click here.

Jean Vanier speaks in a special way here about the way to celebrate and the purpose of celebrating. This is important for us to think about because as we get further from easter I am afraid we will slip into a routine and forget the importance of Easter in our lives. It is almost as if we need to relearn the art of celebrating Easter.

Take for example the way many of us have begun to prepare for Easter by giving up something for Lent (not to mention the tremendous popularity of Mardi Gras). These Lenten practices sometimes become the highlight of our Christian observances (second only to Christmas gift-giving which is controversial as a christian practice). I agree that Lent and giving up parts of our very blessed lives for Lent is a great way to prepare our lives for Easter. But have you ever thought of adding something to your life during the fifty days of Easter.

Here are some ways to begin Celebrating Easter.

1. Taking on a disciplne such as the Upper Room. By doing this you will have the opportunity to be reminded of God's love for you each day during a regular devotion.

2. Eating a sweet each day that you might not normally eat due to 'diet issues.' Now be thoughtful in this one. It is not necessary to eat a whole cheesecake aeach day to celebrate Easter. But what I am moving towards is the intimate connection of our bodys and our souls. Just like watching the sunset can be a spiritual experience and make us think of God -- so too eating a sweet can remind us of the sweetness of Easter and God's love for us.

3. Plant something. This can be a small herb window garden or a small flower in a pot. At our house we have a full vegetable garden. We enjoy the daily joy of seeing what new things God is doing in our lives because of the barren cross and the empty tomb. It also helps us remember that we must fufill our side of the bargain and be willing to tend the garden if it is to grow. God requires our work to make good on his gifts of grace we must not sit around and let it spoil.

These are three very easy ways to begin to celebrate Easter during the weeks between Easter and Pentecost. If you can recognise that Easter is a special change in your spiritual Life... then find a way that each year Easter can also change your day to day life.

So what will you add to your life to celebrate the gift of Easter in your life?

E-mail me and let me know how you celebrate Easter.