Culture Week - Part 7: Easter in America

I survived it. Some years this week is more grueling than others, but it is always a lot of work. I am talking about the week beginning with Palm Sunday and ending with Easter. It is a busy time for folks in the church. I love it. I relish it. But it is work nevertheless.

The Easter season is also usually associated with a few other things in our culture as well. How about these two? College Spring break and Jesus movies on TV.

Spring break is a phenomenon that occurs so college students get a break. But it is usually around the Easter holiday.

Jesus movies are really fun for me. In college I was a speech communications major so anything theatrical . . . I like. Now, usually I have a strong distaste for bad drama, but when it comes to what I call “Bathrobe Dramas,” or movies about Jesus, I love them. I watch all that come on during Lent, Easter or even Christmas . . . and there are a lot of them. I like anything that gives me a new slant on the character of Jesus. I may not agree with their interpretation, but I like the angles.

The point for me here is that we really do want the hope of a resurrection. We may doubt its validity (and without genuine faith, there is nothing else you could do) but it is the essence of a hope inside each of us. Deep down we all want to believe that this life is not all there is. Something in our souls cries out that this is so!

On Easter Sunday in our church this year we tried our best to balance Easter and Good Friday. We bounced back and forth between death and life, crucifixion and resurrection, burial and rising. The point: there can be no resurrection, if there has been no death. There can be no victory in the death of Christ without the resurrection. How can we feel the joy of Easter without fully realizing the pain of Good Friday? How can we endure the pain of Good Friday without the joy of the resurrection?

· Without Easter Sunday, Good Friday is desolation.
· Without Easter Sunday, Good Friday is despair.
· Without Easter Sunday, Good Friday is death.
· Without Easter Sunday, Good Friday is the end.
· Without Easter Sunday, Good Friday is no good at all!
· Easter Sunday and the resurrection declare that the cross was the ultimate victory!

At some time in the future, I want to blog about the cultural and temporal spectacles we all put on days like Good Friday, but for today, I want to say that there is a joy in the resurrection that our very being cries to be true.

My dear friend, it is true. The resurrection of the God/Man Jesus is ever so true!