A Gift of New Life

April 17, 2009
So, it’s been a few days since Easter but I feel that time is worth going back to recount for you.
In the weeks before Easter I was getting very excited about the thought of a new celebration of the Lord. However, I was also getting a little sad that I may not be able to participate in many of the fun celebratory traditions that I usually do – dying eggs, learning a message from an enlightening homily at a familiar church, spending a day with overflowing love from close family and friends, receiving colorful and tasty chocolate treats from my mom even though I’ve outgrown them, and many other things many of us cherish about Easter traditions spent at home.
The closer it got to Easter the more I realized that virtually all of these things I cherished would be missing from my Easter this year. Even though I thought my sadness was somewhat pitiful and missing such little physical things was childish, I realized that I needed to make preparations to avoid falling into a slight depression (one lesson I have to say I learned at camp in preventing homesickness – Take Preventive Action!).
I set to work on redirecting my focus from the material aspects of the holiday to Christ’s intended spiritual focus of this time – Himself, God, and the Holy Spirit. The week before Easter I went to church in Apeldoorn, Holland. It was a last minute decision and my lack of preparation and thought was apparent to me as I sat in the Dutch mass and realized I would not be finding a service in English in such a small town; neither here, in Austria, nor probably in Italy. I spent that time in mass listening intently to foreign Dutch words hoping to understand a word here or there; or hoping that I would perhaps be miraculously gifted with tongues enabling me to understand the message and communicate with my Lord during that hour. There are only so many things I could think to pray about: the homeless, the oppressed, world leaders, my friends and family, my enemies, the Kleins, my faith, my friends’ faith, and my purpose during this time of travel in my life and in the future. After those ten minutes, I was kind of stumped. I admired the ancient church’s paintings and sculptures and squinted to see the distant alter pressed far against the back wall of the church behind iron railings guarding against pleading sinners. I slowly got frustrated with this whole situation and wished that this reality of being a foreigner wasn’t true. Most Dutch people speak English, why didn’t they at least have an English program or copy of the homily? (Classic American Philosophy: why shouldn’t the world should cater to English speaking Americans, most tourists speak English and it would help everyone). Then I thought about foreigners living in America, and how it never crosses our native minds that people have to deal with such struggles on a daily basis. I was in a selfish mode of thought which was the total opposite of what this time in church was supposed to be purposed for.
But the hour and a half long service was not a total loss. The chapters from the bible readings were printed in the Dutch service leaflet I bought for $.30 and I had brought my recently purchased copy of the New Testament. I focused intently on following the readings and as they read them in Dutch I worked on my translating skills matching word for word along my English print listening closely for the related words I could pinpoint like Jerusalem and Jesus. I also racked my memory for the priest’s traditional presentation of the Eucharist at home –I could tell this Catholic Dutch service was using the exact the same words and intonations. I whispered to myself the Nicene Creed, the Our Father, the prayer for Forgiveness of Sins, and participated in the Peace. All in all, when the service ended I felt satisfied in my worship participation but knew that I could make more preparations.
When I returned back to my hostess’ house, I looked up next week’s Easter readings and printed out a 2008 Easter homily from an Episcopal church. While I made a few preparations, I did not print out the words from the Old Testament, of which I didn’t have a copy. This I would find almost devastating at the Easter mass in Austria.
After a tired long journey to Berwang, Austria a few days later I should have reveled in the gift to be with a familiar face for celebrating Christ’s resurrection and for Doris’ wiliness and desire to accompany me to a Saturday night vigil and Sunday Easter mass. While I did appreciate these things, when I ventured to the small town’s local church the German mass was not so similar and the quiet close space didn’t leave much room for Doris to whisper translations to me. I became very frustrated when she didn’t pay attention to the announced chapter in the bible, the message that was being communicated, or make an effort to keep me abreast of the ancient stories that were being recounted. All things which I held very dearly. After having missed the Good Friday mass, I wanted to make that Saturday night vigil into an intense spiritual meditation on Christ’s sacrifice and having to sit in silence unable to sing or listen to the stories I needed to hear was making me increasingly upset. It didn’t help that this Saturday night service was not following traditional programming and I couldn’t figure out whether people were reading or praying or what I should be doing.
After mass I ended up falling into tears to Doris communicating frustration about not being able to participate in worship. A good friend, she listened as I cried as I explained how my heart yearned to do this one thing so vital to my being and purpose in life – honor my God. After relieving all of these emotions, I began to have some clarity on God’s perspective on what I was feeling. I heard his wise response as a father advises a child – "I know you want to worship me and participate in the service like you traditionally do, but really, this Easter season isn’t about focusing on your needs. It is actually about recognizing My sacrifices, not yours."
He wouldn’t say it to my face but I could realize the different levels of sacrifice. Mine: sacrificing an hour of sitting still listening for the Lord and just spending time with Him without necessarily receiving satisfaction. His: God giving up His only son through a painful death as He bore the weight of the world’s sin on His heart.
"I appreciate you just being there. For giving up the hour. For loving me and contemplating my death" He would continue. "Everything, especially this season, isn’t always necessarily about you, my child."
After hearing this message, I began to calm down a little. As I had heard my concerns out loud, I realized the Lord was right (dugh). But I also realized that I was more to blame for my frustration than God or life. What I saw was that I hadn’t prepared enough for mass that day but I also hadn’t prepared my soul over the Lenten season. At the beginning of the Lenten season, I thought about the tradition of giving something up for God. The more I thought about it, the more I began to despise the act as something Americans had transformed into a dieting excuse. I also thought about adding something to my worship schedule as I had tried before – such as daily devotionals or prayer time. But instead I lazily dismissed the idea because I was sick of making promises to God that I couldn’t keep, devotional commitments were something I had seemed to fail at regularly.
So now that Easter was here I found myself resenting the fact that everyone else was celebrating Christ’s resurrection when I hadn’t got to morn his trails and death. But it was no one’s fault but my own. Despite my feelings that this Lenten period had been modernized out of its true meaning, I realized that the period of self-sacrifice to acknowledge Christ’s still holds great value.
As I tried to make sense of how to move forward from this new perspective, I heard knew I couldn’t go back in time 40 days as much as I wanted to. I also didn’t want to be the one at the party who was still morning death instead of celebrating life. I decided that Christ and I both were satisfied with my lesson learned and we both decided to move on and do better next year. Another essence of character I love about our Lord: the ability to look past transgressions, appreciate a child’s mistakes and the lessons they learn, and give us, through grace, yet another shot at tackling life and faith.

I let you know how it goes…