“I don’t want Easter to pass me by,” I said in the dark. There was a hint of sadness - it was my own voice but it still took me by surprise. I think Sammy picked it up too; she flung a tired arm around me, half asleep, probably unable to ask me what I meant, but loving me anyway.
What do I mean?
I mean that I don’t want it to just be like any other holiday. I don’t think I want to sleepwalk through it, go the passion play, eat a chocolate egg and have a good old roast dinner in the afternoon. I think that’s what’s happened in recent years - a sort of numbing to something that ought to be treated with awe and wonder. Imagine being so fascinated with the stone table and the broken mouse-nibbled ropes, so blinded by the morning sun and the deep magic, that you actually forget that Aslan is right there in front of you.
We lived opposite a park when I was young. At this time of year, it would burst with green, and there’d be a sea of yellow daffodils. The sky was bright blue and the world was fresh with new life, enjoying the white spring sun. I remember the smell of chocolate and hot cross buns, and tea and simnel cake - there was a lusciousness to it all that I still sort of miss.
But all of these things were echoes of a far greater feeling, a wondrousness at the story of Jesus that must have somehow coursed through my blood into my tears and laughter and joy and sorrow and love, ‘mingled down’ as the hymn says. Look, I don’t want to get all mushy or preachy or anything, but it’s that that I miss. It’s that that I don’t really want to pass me by. And I can’t help asking myself, where did it go?
I really love that bit in the book where Aslan, newly woken from the stone table, just roars - and the whole of Narnia seems to shake. I don’t know if I always hear it, or always know it, but somewhere deep down, that resounding echo is what Easter should really be about for me.
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