Easter Week, from man to God

I like the eternal verities, and seek them everywhere and in all seasons. Eternal verities, things that are always true, often hold true in regard to light and the shifting earth moon sun and stars. For me, Christmas is all about the solstice, the light shining forth in darkness, and the babe radiant in the manger under the shining star. Even Santa rolling all bright and cheery out of the dark chimney, and the festivals of light all accord with the solstice very well. A light shines forth in the darkness. Remember the Prologue to John. It's easy to keep a mystical perspective throughout the days of the season.

At first blush, equinoxes are a little harder to integrate into the grand scheme of things. At Christmas solstice we think of the transcendent Christ as the light of the world. In His death and resurrection at Easter it is the transcendent Christ again who embodies that mystery of eternal life. The vernal equinox is about new life in the spring, new life bursting forth in nature, flowers abloom, resurrection anew. Hold a barnyard egg up to the light, see the life immanent within. It's easy to understand that the egg is a symbol of the season and of Christ's illumination of us.

But in the week leading up to Easter, we think of Jesus the man. The man washing his disciples' feet, the man weeping in the garden, the man betrayed by his friends, the man being nailed to the cross, the man suffering. The great Easter Vigil, falling on the silent night before Easter as we await the risen Christ, is the historic time for baptism and renewal. We share in the shift from man to God.

I love the old Sunday school handouts from the 50's, before the pictures were so painfully politically correct, modernized and vividly colored. I love the old soft-toned simple drawings of Jesus coming into Jerusalem, of Jesus with the children, of Jesus praying in the garden, and the old Sallman portrait of Jesus that I accepted as fact when I was a child.

And so I immerse myself in the eternal verities as I see them, whenever I can. But this week I think of the historical Jesus, and of the concrete experiences of the man who was called to be an avatar of light and truth, a Christ.