Easter already: Living with the church calendar
In December, my Facebook friends and I voted to move Easter back to April this year, where it belongs. But apparently the liturgical calendar is not determined democratically, because here we are, already well into Lent.
It’s bad enough that we have to begin the church year with people fainting from “fear and foreboding” (Luke 21:26). After Advent’s doom and gloom, we get only a few days of Christmas cheer before the blood of babies runs in through the cobbled streets of Bethlehem. It’s pretty brutal stuff. We usually have a couple of months to get our bearings.
But not this year. This year we were rending our hearts and not our clothing scarcely a month after the Magi’s visit. We barely had time to get the nativity sets put away before Jesus was whisked away to the wilderness. It’s enough to give a pastor spiritual whiplash.
