Whensday: Spring

Was it yesterday (March 19) or today March 20)? Or maybe tomorrow? When does Spring start? As far as we are concerned, it gets going as soon as we see the crocus flowers in our garden. That is often in February and we know that Sporing is on the way. 

We noticed that the US already moved into Summer Time, springing ahead by one hour. In Europe we will only spring ahead at the end of the month, which is the Saturday before Easter. So the month will end, Spring will begin, we will all lose an hour sleep and Easter will wake us up. To be honest, that is not a bad picture if you think about the resurrection of the Lord. His resurrection on Easter Sunday was indeed the end of the darkness of death and the beginning of real life for everyone who believes. 

Easter in Dutch-speaking Europe is called “Pasen” - a word linked to the Jewish celebration, the “Pascha” (or Passover” in English). As with many other countries and cultures, Easter is a strange mix of rabbits, chickens, eggs and chocolates. This is of course because it is a mixture of fertility rituals from pagan religions. 

In Maastricht we often get the question from people who know us if we as a congregation celebrate Easter. Of course Easter always falls on a Sunday (unlike Christmas). So we always have a worship time on this special holiday. But we also try to explain how we celebrate this amazing occurrence (of Jesus’ resurrection) every Sunday. The rest of the spectacle we leave to others. 

It will be nice to know that we can talk to our kids again at a normal 6 hour difference instead of five hours. That means that we can eat dinner as they are eating lunch while we talk to one another. It also means that we will enjoy helping teach during the Vacation Bible Kamp planned for the Belgian kids (the Dutch do not yet have school vacation). And when the week is done, we will have jumped into the next season with verve. 

(This picture is of our Thankfulness Walk this past Saturday in Maastricht)

The second day

Today is the second day of Easter. Didn’t you know that Easter had two days? So do Christmas and Pentecost - at least in Belgium and the Netherlands. For Christmas people might be familiar with ‘Boxing Day’. Here, that is the second day of Christmas. Each of the major Christian holidays is celebrated with two days. Some are official: people get off work the stores and banks are closed, and people do family things or go on holiday.
It is interesting to see how much people want the holidays without much knowing what they are for or what they mean. At the same time, it is good to be able to speak of Jesus and his resurrection since people will be aware that that is certainly done on this holiday.
Here in the Catholic south of the Netherlands, or in Catholic Belgium, most would expect to go to mass on Easter Sunday. But most of the churches these days are struggling to find enough priests for the various churches. Our village celebrates mass weekly on Thursday. The village over on Saturday. The village up the hill on Monday. This because there is only one parish priest who has to spread his time around.
This is an addition to the disconnect that occurred during the corona years. At that time churches in Belgium were shut down, officially. In theNetherlands, although the constitution made it possible to still meet together, many churches closed their doors and tried to open internet windows. But people who were already separating themselves from religion in their daily lives found it even easier to do so.
So it has been interesting to see, now that these restrictions are no longer in place, how people have welcomed certain elements back into their lives. In Maastricht, there has traditionally been a procession on Good Friday. It was once again well-attended. In many places you can hear people saying “Blessed Easter” instead of “Happy Easter”.
In our conversations we often talk to people about being a cultural Christian. Many would say that they are Christians because they see this as a cultural distinction. They are not Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist. They are Christian. It does not necessarily describe any belief or faith on their part. It is their tradition, their family history.
And family is good. Even better when we truly know why we belong together. There is family that we are born into and family that we choose. We are looking forward to seeing our family all around the US soon - both our family into which we were born, and the family into which God placed us at our new birth.
And here, when we go walking on the second day of Easter and meet others walking, we may say to some: “He is risen.” Some will know what we are talking about. Others might even respond: “He is risen indeed.” Some still know this phrase. Many do not consider if they truly believe it or not. But for a day, for a moment, there is a focus on what is true and amazing, even on the second day. On the third day, and each day afterwards, we will continue speaking of this amazing love, hoping that people will see that this is more than a tradition or religion.