Men are from Mars

Why is it that the Easter Bank Holiday weekend always gives us less than perfect weather? And it doesn’t matter when Easter falls! It is a moveable feast and can be as early as March 22 and as late as April 25. But whatever the date, the weather tends to be lousy and the days before and after the holiday tend to be lovely!

Actually yesterday, Easter Sunday, wasn’t so bad in the South of England in spite of some dire and gloomy weather forecasts but I know it was pretty grim for lots of other places and we had some terrible showers, some of hail, in between the sunny spells.

And now that most people here are back at work I woke up to a lovely sunny and mild day. Great, I thought, at last an opportunity to do lots of outdoor gardening jobs, generally sweeping and tidying up and checking on all the seeds that I have been sowing in seedtrays and pots for planting out later.

So I went downstairs for a cup of tea and a bowl of porridge to start the day right. I make the porridge in the Microwave oven. It takes exactly 5 minutes on medium and is always perfect.

And during that 5 minutes, and whilst the kettle boiled for the tea, I emptied the dishwasher and put all the stuff away, watered all the plants on the kitchen window ledge (lots of orchids, a strelitzia that I am really proud of, grown from seed, and several cyclamen), swept the kitchen floor, checked the temperature of the propagator where I have sown several varieties of squash, wiped the dining room table not done after supper last night, put in the fridge various food stuffs that should also have been put away last night, took a load of washing out of the tumbler dryer, and did all those things just in time to pour the tea and take the porridge out of the oven ready to eat!

And all this reminded me of a cartoon by Annie Tempest. If you do not know about the village of Tottering-By-Gently and the work of Annie Tempest you have really been missing something. Do visit her website. Annie is a fantastic observer of British life and the British character, but she also has an international following, as she “touches a note of universal truth in her exquisitely detailed and beautifully executed cartoons as she gently laughs with us at the stuff of life.” She has captured this Mars and Venus phenomenon in a wonderful cartoon, called “The Male and Female Characters.” In this she depicts on the one hand the woman doing all these things and more whilst the kettle boils to make coffee. When it is the man’s turn to go downstairs to make the coffee, he simply leans against the aga doing absolutely nothing whilst he waits for the kettle to boil! Life I guess was ever thus, and always will be.

So...I have spent all morning doing those gardening chores, and now I better go and fold all the washing and put it away and cook some lunch. Who was it I wonder who said that “a woman’s work is never done?”

He is Risen indeed, Alleluia

Today is Easter Sunday, the most important day of our Christian year, the day when Christ crucified rose from the dead, leaving an empty tomb. During the service we all went up to the cross in the centre of the church and decked it with flowers, transforming it from a stark instrument of torture into the most beautiful symbol of new life and the joy of creation.

I think this is a particularly wonderful way to celebrate the glory of the Risen Christ, but I am sure other churches have different and equally striking ideas, probably as many ideas as there are priests! I would love to hear of them.

But perhaps we need to start at the beginning. We have just come to the end of the most important and Holy Week in the Christian Church year. It started on Palm Sunday, when we commemorated Christ's entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, to cries of adulation and singing, Hosannah in the highest! We processed along the road into church waving palm crosses, not only reminding us of what happened to Jesus on that day, but also serving to praise Christ the King who reigns and triumphs on the cross. It expresses our own readiness to take up our cross and follow our crucified and risen Lord, as we go with him to the place of suffering and death.

Through the week we continued to follow Christ's journey, from his trial to his death upon the cross. On Maundy Thursday we remembered how Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, and we stripped out the chancel and sanctuary ready for Good Friday when we held the most solemn and simple of services around that cross, this time stark and simple and cruel. We had carried nails around with us all week, given to us on Palm Sunday, and we laid them at the foot of that cross on Good Friday, a symbol of the burdens we had carried, now left to the care of the Christ crucified. 

But then comes Easter Saturday, and that night, the time when our Lord Jesus Christ passed over from death to life, we joined Christians across the world to gather in vigil and prayer, lighting our Paschal or Easter candle from a fire in the churchyard and carrying it into the church in darkness, to light all the candles and spread that Light of the World to all the congregation and beyond.

 

And of course Easter would not be Easter without Easter Eggs for the youngsters and indeed for the not so young!! There were cream eggs handed out to all the children who came up to the communion rail and as if that was not enough for them, an egg hunt had been set up in the churchyard whilst the adults had their coffee and biscuit - and sneaked a few eggs as well no doubt!

He is risen indeed, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!