Easter in retrospect

Passion Week this year for me was a torrid time. I spent the week first in Brazil, then in Barbados: lucky for some you might think! But I was the bearer of bad financial news for church partners with whom my organisation works. The meetings were bruising, and there was a deep sense of unease amongst us all about the nature of the partnerships we share.

But the Barbadian sun, and the natural warmth and hospitality of her people could not keep me glum for long. Palm Sunday saw a wonderful morning of processions, preaching, liturgy and song, using fresh cut palms and home-made crosses. I really wouldn’t have minded if the BA flight had not turned up... they were on strike after all.

But it came, and I was back in Surrey by early Monday morning. Then the rhythm of Holy Week was lost. I slept on Monday night; rose at 0400 to fly to Edinburgh on Tuesday, returning from a meeting at 2200 that night. Wednesday and Thursday at the office then off to Sweden Thursday night for an Easter break with the family. So I never got to a single Holy Week service at our local church.

That’s not usually too much of a problem for me – never was a great liturgist! – but this year I did feel the gap. Partly because there had been a lot of Good Friday about work issues of recent weeks, with not much hint of Easter. I guess I had hoped for a way of working that through, laying it to rest, putting it into some kind of a tomb.

But it all changed on Easter morning. Not, I might say, because of any wonderful Easter worship: Swedish churches are not renowned for getting excited!

Holy Saturday had been my grandson’s third birthday. He had a ball! His prize gift was a wonderful red fire engine with all the trimmings – flashing lights, ladders, hose pipe, the lot. What he didn’t discover ( and we didn’t tell him!) was that there was a also a water tank you could fill, and a pump for the hose to cause total mayhem around the house, until.....

At around 0630 on Easter morning, there was a little tapping on our bedroom door, and a small voice calling “Grandad – come and see! Grandad, come and see!”

Rude awakening or not, I found myself transported in a child’s world of total wonder: his face radiant, his grin impish, his design on soaking Grandad quickly and efficiently, faultless. So this was our Easter! Here was new life, here was abundant possibility, here was baptism (!) and here was a whole new community, viewing the world as all possibility, and full-on engagement.

Going to church was a positive anti-climax after that.

No wonder “come and see!” has such a place in the theology of John’s Gospel.