Welcome back readers, and welcome, new readers.
Today is Holy Saturday, the day that for Jesus’ disciples must have been one of devastating grief, and for us – remembering Christ’s descent to release Hell’s captives – is one of solemn hope. This is a day of preparation as, still in the shadow of Good Friday, we look forward to the celebration of Easter Sunday, to the moment when the rising sun proclaims Christ risen – in the words of sixth century poet Venantius Fortunatus which we chose as the title of this post:
Welcome happy Easter!
Age through age shall say:
Death today is vanquished
Heaven is won today.
Marianne – in Woodcrest, upstate New York
Preparing for Easter with our family of five children ages four to thirteen, I remembered a section in Maria von Trapp’s* autobiography that tells in detail about their family’s celebration of Easter in rural Austria in the 1930s. My mom gave me this book when I was about twelve and I read it so many times that it was like reconnecting with an old friend when I hunted out a copy just now; the Easter section is as wonderful as I remembered and I’m looking forward to rereading the rest of it.
*Yes, the same Maria von Trapp who we know as Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. As a child I felt a family connection to this story because my grandparents also escaped on their honeymoon via the Alps to avoid my grandfather being conscripted into the Nazi army. The day after their wedding in Liechtenstein they started to travel to England via France, but the French officials in Zurich wouldn't give them a visa because his passport was almost expired. They didn’t want to go to German consul to renew because my grandfather was military age (conscription had already begun) so they went to a café to consider their options, none good. Suddenly my grandmother stood up, took his passport, and marched into the German consulate, demanding/charming the official into stamping it. They arrived in England the next day. Similar to the von Trapps they also (eventually, via England and Paraguay for several decades) settled in the US, and (eventually) also had a family of eight children who enjoyed singing folk songs together (but did not perform in public).
Anyways, back to Easter preparations and Maria von Trapp’s book: her descriptions of the days leading up to Easter and their family and church celebration all sound very familiar: the discussions between the parents about what sacrifices to make during Lent and what to read as a family, the decoration of the house with daffodils and budding branches, the baking and cooking of special Easter foods, the hectic projects coloring eggs, the tremulous expectation for the Easter bunny amidst the most sacred moments, the first unfathomable experience of Good Friday and Easter by young hearts. She writes:
As a child you lived through these days in an exalted state of mind. They are not like any other ordinary Thursday, Friday, Saturday; young as you may be, your little heart is shattered by these tremendous mysteries you help to celebrate.
She describes the services and silence of Good Friday and then tells how on Holy Saturday:
…the people want to make up for all the horror and lonely suffering. The altar is flooded in candlelight and covered with flowers, and people come day and night to keep Him company in love and compassion.
In a side chapel of the church…a tomb has been constructed….It is the ambition of the whole parish to make this resting place a thoroughly beautiful one. Hundreds of potted plants are brought, and hundreds of candles and vigil lights, giving testimony of the burning love and faith of the donors.
And this, too, is familiar. Here in Woodcrest, the younger school children work every year to make “Easter gardens” – little models of the garden tomb with three crosses made of small branches lashed together. Instead of being in a chapel, the Easter gardens are in the woods: school work comes to a halt during Easter week and instead the classes go outside and the younger children, in groups of two and three, work on creating their gardens in an assigned spot.
The construction and decoration is done with childlike precision and devotion: moss and bark are collected, paper flowers and butterflies are snipped out and lovingly arranged, and the most treasured seashells and colored stones are brought out of rock collections to adorn the little paths and borders.
After our community worship service on Good Friday, these gardens are a destination for many families’ walks during that long day of remembrance and prayer. In the careful loving work of the children’s hands we can see the care and love of the holy women who attended Jesus to his tomb. With them we wait through Holy Saturday and anticipate the joy of Easter morning, when (to quote Maria von Trapp one more time),
You would have to be unconscious if your heart did not feel at least some of the happiness of the victory of light over darkness – life over death. Whatever troubles and sorrows may overshadow your path, they have become lighter today – thus you have been a witness to the ultimate victory: Christ is risen – also in your own life. “Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!”
Norann – in Danthonia, New South Wales, Australia
Ever since Chris and I had the privilege of visiting Israel in 1996, the images of Holy Week come to mind within the context of having visited the Holy Land. In those pre-smartphone camera days, each of the photographs we brought home from our trip was treasured and unique. These pictures – a little more faded and less sharp than the photography we’ve gotten used to seeing – became part of our family’s Easter experience as each year we took them out and recalled the places where Jesus, his disciples, and the Early Church lived and walked, where beloved children of God still live and walk today.
The beautiful faces of the many children we met, children whose ancestors no doubt played a part in the narrative of our Master who placed the children in the center and told us to become like them.
HE IS NOT HERE, FOR HE IS RISEN!
Trudi – in Yeongwol, South Korea
I’m celebrating my third Easter in Korea. It’s not a public holiday and not even the commercialized bunny and chick version of Easter really surfaces here. But I know that Korean believers are celebrating Easter as Christ’s followers do all over the world. I feel saddened to think that Easter will go unnoticed by many, but perhaps those who pass by Yeongwol will see three small crosses poking out of the great pile of boulders at the side of the road.
I don’t know what the previous owner had planned to do with those boulders, but myself and the other two young folks at Yeongwol were thrilled to find a natural cave on one side. A perfect tomb. Together with some middle school-age children, we hauled more rocks to the cave, mixed some clay-like mud to use as mortar, and made our own replication of the tomb where Jesus was laid.
We pulled and cut away brambles and tangled vines, and on Thursday evening, we added three crosses on top of the Golgotha-like mound.
On Good Friday, the whole of Yeongwol community went to the crosses to hear the story of Jesus’ Passion, read by the father of one of the children. We stood there, listened, sang, and prayed—in English and Korean.
The stories of the Holy Week and the profound meaning in Jesus’ last words and actions speak to each person’s heart in different ways. For me, I feel increasingly overwhelmed by the depth of all that Easter means. I realize I need much more than forty days of Lent and several holy days of remembrance to learn all that Jesus showed me in his life and death. Both my own, and our collective celebration of Easter, is an opportunity to return home to what matters, and to grasp once again that which makes life worth living year round.
Heaving heavy rocks to hold up the crosses was for the Crucifixion. Cutting and arranging flowers at the tomb entrance was for the Resurrection.
I know that on Easter Sunday, the children who helped make the tomb and the families, neighbors, and visitors who come to see it, might feel like Jesus’ closest friends. We did not keep watch with Jesus, we let him down, perhaps even denied him—but, when we hear the news, it doesn’t matter: we cannot help but run to the empty tomb with joy because we know he has risen again. Our hearts are burning in His Presence. We can live again, because He lives again!
What we’re enjoying
Trudi
I’ve been looking at and appreciating artist Kim Ki-chang’s depictions of a Jesus in a Korean setting. I’ve shared a few on my own substack Why Korea. Enjoy them there!
Norann
What I’m reading: Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Actually, I just finished studying it with my Year 11 Literature students. Even though I teach this play every year, its profound message arrives at my heartstep fresh with each new group of students. My current class engaged with the text in surprising depth, and it was a privilege to consider the play’s themes together:
We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings.”
“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?
What I’m listening to: I’ve been a big fan of Andrew Peterson’s music since I first heard his Counting Stars album in 2010. This Holy Week I’m treasuring this particular playlist of Andrew’s Lent and Easter songs.
Marianne
What I’m reading: The family reader we decided on for Holy Week is The Life of our Lord by Charles Dickens, a childlike account of Jesus’ life written for his own children to whom he wrote, “My Dear Children, I am very anxious that you should know about the History of Jesus Christ.” This manuscript was so precious to him that he refused to have it published during his lifetime, and it was only after the death of all his children that it was printed for the public.
What I’m listening to: On the evening of Holy Saturday I love to listen to Nicolai Rimsky Korsakov’s “Russian Easter Overture” which weaves themes from Orthodox liturgy into a musical narrative of the events of the night leading into Easter morning, known in Russian as the “Bright Festival”. As described by the composer:
The theme “Let God arise” [woodwinds], alternating with the melody “An angel cried out” [solo cello], appeared to me as the ancient prophecy of Isaiah of the Resurrection of Christ. The gloomy colors of the Andante lugubre seemed to depict the Holy Sepulchre that had shone with ineffable light at the moment of the Resurrection. The theme “Let them also that hate Him flee before Him” at the start of the Allegro led to the holiday mood of the Greek Orthodox service on Christ’s matins; the solemn trumpet voice of the Archangel was replaced by a tonal reproduction of the joyous, almost dancelike tolling of bells, alternating now with the sexton’s rapid reading and now with the conventional chant of the priest’s reading the glad tidings of the Evangelist. The theme “Christ is arisen” appears amid the trumpet blasts and the bell-tolling, a triumphant conclusion.
And now, to end: an Easter song in a rainforest!
Contributed by Norann
Recently, Chris and I found ourselves needing a quick break on a long road trip, so scampered up the rainforested trails in Cunninghams Gap. This mountainous pass is set in the Great Dividing Range, and home to myriad flora and fauna. Chris grabbed some footage of the beauty, and we added a track of us singing an original, simple, and much-loved Easter song written by Bruderhof member Klaus Barth.
Enjoy!