Now the Feast and Celebration

P: "Christ is risen!"

C: "Christ is risen indeed!"

Good Lutherans (and Christians of other denominations, too, perhaps) will recognize that Easter morning exchange from their service hymnals. In fact, well trained Lutherans, like Pavlov's dog, will respond automatically with the latter line upon hearing the former line any season of the church year, no matter how out of place--try it Christmas morning, for example, and see if I'm right. [It's the same phenomenon that explains why a Lutheran says, "And also with you" anytime he hears, "Peace be with you." It also sheds some light on why Lutherans say, "And also with you" when a Jedi in any of the Star Wars movies says, "May the Force be with you."]

I tried, "Christ is risen!" with the girls this morning but got nothing in return. That isn't to say that they're not good little Lutherans; it is to say that I had set them in the wrong frame of mind this morning when I wakened them with this whisper: "I think I just stepped in some fresh rabbit poop." Yep, with visions of the Easter bunny hopping around in their heads, they weren't thinking of crosses or empty tombs as they bolted up the stairs in search of their Easter baskets.

While Jesus Christ was on his way to church to wait for the girls, the Easter bunny had been sneaking around the house, tucking their gift- and candy-filled baskets into hiding spots around our home. He also set up some gifts and candy by the fireplace in the living room, which is where we gathered while the girls inspected the contents of their baskets:

We weren't sure which service to attend today. Anticipating a fuller house than normal owing to C & E Christians (who attend only at Christmas and Easter), we chose the 8:00 A.M. service thinking that, if the C & E's cannot be bothered to attend church more than twice a year (or more if there's a family funeral, baptism, or wedding), then certainly they aren't likely to wake up early on a Sunday morning when late-morning options are available to them. We were wrong; even the earliest service was packed, and we ended up in the front pew.

Susan, as Sunday school director, had to stay at church throughout the morning to supervise a craft project ("Create a faux stained-glass cross!") that was available for kids and adults to do whenever they had time. It was set up in the fellowship hall in the lower level of the church, as were tables of doughnuts and coffee, a situation intended to serve as cross-promotion. Alas, the 12 hours that Susan spent cutting crosses out of contact paper and tearing colored tissue paper into little pieces to serve as "stained glass" were all for naught: over 1,500 people attended services today, but only 17 people stopped by to do the activity. That number includes me and our three daughters. It seems that, without regular Sunday school classes scheduled for today, most children (and/or their parents?) took the morning off.

The girls and I took our crosses, left Susan behind to staff the craft table, and headed to the grocery store to buy a few ingredients for dinner. At home, I doctored up some leftover chili to increase the spiciness level and baked some chicken, and Susan joined us to eat when she got home. For supper she made ham, scalloped potatoes, a shrimp/macaroni salad that my aunt Sharon often made, and multiple flavors of Jell-O egg jigglers. We also ate some of the hard-boiled eggs that the girls had decorated, and for dessert we ate the apple pie that Susan had baked (with crust that she had made from scratch, I might add). Delicious!

We visited by telephone with my dad, my sister Cathy, Susan's dad, her sister Cassie, and her aunt Jake, whose call was a very pleasant surprise! We also moaned from being stuffed with delicious food and Easter candy. Why do we celebrate religious holidays by overeating? "And on the third day, Christ" did not head off to an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant, did he? Oh, well, by now it's a firmly ensconced extended family tradition--too late to give it up (even if we wanted to). Happy Easter!