This joyful Eastertide

It's nearly Easter again.  I like Easter for many reasons.  For a start, a few days off is always welcome, and it seems a long time since the Christmas break.  Also things seem less rushed that at Christmas- you feel under less obligation to visit every relative you possibly can in a week and to go back to work feeling tired and full of turkey- probably you've enjoyed the Christmas season, but part of you is glad to get back to normal routine.

There's less pressure surrounding Easter, fewer expectations, less hype.  I find it easier to celebrate the Easter season for its' own sake, for the meaning behind it, than I do at Christmas.  That's not to criticize Christmas- in many ways it's a festival I love celebrating.  But there's something to be said for the more relaxed way of celebrating that is demonstrated at Easter.  And of course the weather's usually nicer at Easter- three years ago I remembe having a barbecue and egg hunt in a friend's garden on Easter Sunday. The following year, however, it snowed!

You might not realise it from popular culture, but Easter is at least as important as Christmas in the Christian calendar.  Some reasons why I think it's not so popular I've already talked about on this blog.  While at Christmas we think in wonder of the powerful God, huge beyond our imaginations, who chose to become a vulnerable, dependent baby born to a poor woman in a strange town, at Easter the mystery is different.  And humanity doesn't come out of it so well.

On Good Friday we think in wonder about how God's son allowed himself to be tortured and killed by us, the people he created.  It's the second part of the mystery of God becoming one of us that we celebrate at Christmas.  Saturday is a day of anticipation and waiting, of thinking of how the disciples, the men and women who had followed Jesus, must have felt when he had gone and they were alone. 

And then on Easter Sunday we think about the greatest miracle- that Jesus rose from the dead.  We praise him for defeating death, for providing a way for us to get rid of the consequences of our selfishness and all the times we put ourselves before God.  It's a time for joy and celebration.  It always seems a shame to me that there are very few Easter 'carols' and that singing (in public, in services, in schools) isn't as common as at Christmas.  There are Easter hymns, but they're nowhere near as well known as their Christmas counterparts.  I expect the Victorians are to blame somehow.

So I'm looking forward to Easter.  I've been struggling a bit with my faith and things lately.  Christmas wasn't a relaxing time for me, and a few days now where I can focus on God- and in fact on my own needs, rather than trying to push myself to the side as I think and worry and pray about other people.  I find it quite hard to pray for myself.  Maybe this Easter I'll get a chance to work on that- as long as I don't get bogged down into feeling lonely as most of my friends celebrate time off with their partners or go back to their parents.  

But most important of all, Easter is a chance to focus on praising God.  Maybe this year I'll make it to the sunrise service at church, or maybe I won't.  But I will spend some time trying to focus on God, praising him for the most awesome moment in history- the time when he gave himself to rescue us and shatter the power of our selfishness.