There are many mundane things that I could have blogged about and nearly did, but then I figured I ought to have something profound to say about Easter, given that we are supposed to be professional Full-Time Christian Workers or something. The trouble is that Easter has almost bypassed us, despite being supposedly professional FTCW’s, and despite having two whole bank holidays supposedly dedicated to Easter on Thursday and Friday.
The Catholic church (which something like 90% of Argentineans would at least nominally align themselves with) goes in for Easter in a big big way, although unfortunately they don’t always get as far as the Resurrection part of the story.
The Evangelical church meanwhile manages to avoid such accusations by missing out the birth, the death, and the resurrection. At least we’re consistent. In fact the whole “God-become-man” thing in general sometimes seems to be strangely absent from Evangelical teaching around here.
Today’s lesson in my Sunday School schedule was a worthy study in 2 Corinthians on the subject of the church and how appreciative we should be of it (abundantly illustrated by guilt-heaping examples of other people who value their church more than we the accused). So I lifted the phrase out of my assigned passage which says “if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17) , and holding it between my teeth, dived into the John 20 account of the empty tomb with a “and here’s why”. And then we made Easter cards. I did feel a bit sorry for the younger group who were dutifully colouring in their work-sheets while the bigger kids were having fun, but I thought it might be a crime too far to trash yet another lesson even if it was dull given that I was already ignoring that which had been carefully planned for me to deliver.
As for Easter, personally I can’t get beyond the moment of recognition in John’s gospel:
Jesus said to her, “Mary”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni” (which means teacher).
Do I have anything more profound to add to that? Not a chance.