Pause In Lent 2013 #6

There’s a passage in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, where the people of Narnia lament that it is

“Always winter, but never Christmas”

I took these pictures of our back garden on Saturday morning, when it was snowing – the snow kept falling all day – and I thought

“It seems to be always winter, but never Easter!”

Then I was looking at the Patchwork book I had borrowed from the library and found something which cause me to ponder some more.

This book was originally written in Norwegian. This Christmas apron pictures a little Chad-like snowman peeping over a wall [if you don’t know who Chad is, check him out here]

He is asking “og jula varer helt til påske?” which can be translated as

“and Christmas lasts until Easter?”

I thought this was a fascinating question

At Christmas, we celebrated the joy of Incarnation – that Jesus left the glory of heaven to be born as a man, and walk this earth for 33 years. Over the last 3 months, Bob has been preaching a series of sermons using the words of Jesus from the Gospels. He has challenged us with the question “What if Jesus really meant what He said? – How would that shape our life as part of his Kingdom?”  These sermons have really helped me focus on the idea of the way Jesus spoke and lived as he shared our humanity – and how that should impact the way that I speak and live.

But now we move into Holy Week – remembering the end of Jesus’ time of earth – and next Sunday will be Easter, celebrating salvation, resurrection, grace…Christmas Incarnation Joy is wonderful – but even that joy is eclipsed by the joy of Easter.

I was looking at Easter Cards in a shop once, when the woman next to me complained that too many of them were ‘religious’

“I am celebrating Jesus is alive” I said “What are you celebrating at Easter, then?” [she looked embarrassed and scuttled away…]