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March 29, 2016

Fully Anglicized

I grew up in a faith tradition where Lent was something to be picked off a shirt. Maybe we talked about the season but it was never emphasized.

I didn’t realize how fully I’ve come to embrace the seasons of the church year until a phone call with a friend. She went to a megachurch for Easter service. On Good Friday.

The church has so many people, my friend explained, that they held the same Easter service throughout the weekend, on Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Day.

Bewildered, I asked a few questions. Apparently, they conflated the Triduum and Easter into one service. Oh, they mentioned the crucifixion, my friend said.

When I hung up the phone, I came to an important realization: I have become fully Anglicized. I embrace the seasons of the church as a way to move through the grand narrative of God’s story. As much as I want to run to Easter joy, I must walk through Holy Week despair.

The Maundy Thursday service moved me to tears. I almost broke into ugly cry as a I watched the priest wash the feet of a 90-year-old woman. The intimacy and trust in the act was palpable. The physical act of stripping the altar was wrenching. The naked cross on a bare altar tore me apart.

Moving through these days transforms the words: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”

And just as we spend our Lent in deep and penitential reflection, we are now called in this season of Eastertide to celebrate Christ’s resurrection. The fifty days of Easter are set aside as a time to intentionally, deliberately seek to see Christ in all people (this, of course, is our Christian vocation every day of the year, but most especially in these weeks when we walk with the risen Lord).

Our church calendar isn’t merely a way to order the liturgies, to guide the altar guilds and determine the color of vestments. It establishes a rhythm to our faith, a way to fully embrace and connect us to the life, death, and new life of Christ our Savior.

We can’t skip forward for expediency. We must experience each season with our full presence. We must hollow ourselves with the pain of Good Friday year after year so we can be filled with joy.

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