Note: My blog on India is on it’s way! But for right now –
Happy Easter from Swaziland!
Every other Easter of my life I have celebrated with my family in the States. This is what Easter is – waking up in my home, putting on a new spring dress and flats while pretending there isn’t still snow outside, going to my home church full of familiar people who are all celebrating Christ’s resurrection together, visiting family and celebrating all day by sharing the moment with each other, eating chocolate bunnies and hiding eggs. Easter is lovely.
I can imagine what Easter in the States is going to look like in a few hours (from when I’m writing this). I imagine the crowds in church all smiling in celebration together, shaking hands and saying “He is risen” – “He is risen, indeed!”. I imagine the worship and the Easter sermon. The pastor saying “Amen!” and the people saying “Amen”. I imagine the fresh and buoyant spring feel. I imagine my family gathering together and eating fresh fruit and quiche or something else like that. I imagine new dresses and bright colors. Chocolate and eggs.
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This Easter morning I woke up to the beginnings of another sweltering day in this year-long summer. I woke up on a dirty mattress on the floor of a circular hut with a roof of straw; a hut which I share with 12 other girls. I brushed my teeth outside while chickens ran around my feet. My shower was the cold water I poured over myself from a bucket. I put on the same skirt that I have worn time and time again. I put on a plain t-shirt that is wearing out fast. My perfume was the tea tree oil I sprayed in my hair in the continuing battle with lice. Also, we are out in a fairly empty area, and so were advised to do Easter service ourselves. So we didn’t go to church. In the same hut, amidst our mattresses and the clutter all over the floor, we listened to a podcast, read Scripture, and had iPod worship.
I have to admit, Christmas was easier to celebrate overseas than Easter. Christmas seems to be primarily about the Holiday, no matter how hard we Christians try. I knew that I wouldn’t be celebrating Christmas with my family, and so I got used to the idea. I loved the small Christmas that we had. It was unfortunately easy to give a skit on the story of Jesus’s birth and then move on. Just like Thanksgiving, Christmas was just a Holiday.
But Easter is all about Jesus. There aren’t necessarily family ties to Easter. It’s about celebrating Jesus’s resurrection. So what was hard for me was waking up and realizing I didn’t feel like celebrating. There weren’t crowds of happy people, there wasn’t good food or family, and there wasn’t the worship music and sermon like I knew or was expecting. It didn’t feel like a day to celebrate anything.
So, like a good missionary, I took it to God. And these are the ways he answered me.
Answer:
Well…of course. When you think about it, while Easter is a great day to remember, commemorate, and focus on Jesus’s resurrection, to isolate it as THE day that you have to celebrate Jesus’s resurrection is to have the wrong perspective EVERY DAY of your life. When you take away the special church service, nice dresses, and family visits, Easter is a day just like any other day.
So, essentially, every day is just kind of lame?
No! The exact opposite! Every day is Easter!
Every day should be a celebration of Christ’s resurrection. What if we spent every day greeting people with “He is Risen”? In India, the appropriate Christian greeting is almost always “Praise the Lord”. There is no one day to proclaim the truth that our King is ALIVE and REIGNING, and to proclaim it with gladness and complete celebration! Let me tell you, if we can celebrate Christ’s resurrection in stained clothes and our shoes covered in chicken poop, you can celebrate Christ’s resurrection in your business suit with your coffee!
I begin to think that we have led ourselves to believe that there is one day of the year that we are supposed to go all out in celebrating the resurrection, often leading us to downgrade the rest of the days of the year to “normal”. I’m sorry (though I’m not!), but as a Christian, there is no “normal” day. Every day is a day to wake up and pray to God and say “God, I’m sorry, but I am struggling to feel celebratory or truly understand what it means that my savior is alive. Fill me with the joy and understanding so that I can celebrate fully”.
I prayed that in desperation this Easter. Can I pray that every morning?
Answer:
And so I prayed: “God, I’m just not feeling like it’s a celebration. Can you put into my heart the enthusiasm that I have back at home for you and for the truth of your resurrection and how it affects my life?” And this is what He said to me:
“How do you think you should celebrate Easter? Right now you are feeling the emotions of being away from home, in a strange country, living a lifestyle that is not what you are used to, because you have followed my call and desire to bring the light of my love and Gospel to these places. They are not the emotions you usually connect with this day, but they are the emotions of celebrating Christ’s resurrection in a whole new way.”
So, how do we celebrate?
This year I am celebrating Easter by waking up on a dirty mattress in an African hut, because that is where God has called me. I don’t feel like it’s a party, I really, really don’t. I feel tired and homesick. I feel completely reliant on God in a way that borders on desperation. I feel like I am working hard to follow a call that I didn’t choose for myself. I feel the grit of the dust from the roads I’ve travelled on as my pink sandals are turning brown. And I’m joyful. I’m celebrating Easter by learning to walk in the footsteps of my savior.
