It’s an old Eastern European custom. I’m not sure if it’s still practiced in Slavic countries today, but it’s something we did when I was young. On the day after Easter, Bright Monday, men and boys would splash, sprinkle, or squirt water on unsuspecting women while announcing, “Christ is risen!” On Bright Tuesday, it was the women and girls squirting water on the men and boys. I remember leaving church one Bright Tuesday and getting soaked by three women carrying squirt guns. The custom was a reminder of the new life Christians share in baptism and the grace of being alive.
As Easter has become a more of a secular holiday, we have grown to think of Easter as just one day. Wearing colorful clothing, holiday meals are shared with family and friends. Of course, there are Easter egg hunts, jelly beans, and peeps in various colors. But the traditional Christian celebration of Easter is a fifty day holiday which begins on the Day of Resurrection and continues through Pentecost Sunday.
Somehow, we’ve lost something very important about the rhythm of the seasons. People often comment about Ash Wednesday and Lent. On Ash Wednesday, people are seen in public with smudges of ash on their foreheads. Some will ask, “What are you giving up for Lent?” Even though the strict fasts of generations past are rarely practiced today, there’s some awareness of the forty days of Lent as a special time for Christians.
While we keep a focus on Lent, we’ve missed that Easter is a much more important observance. The Lenten season is ten days shorter than the Easter season. The Easter feast of fifty days is meant to remind us that the focus on Christian life is the actual celebration of life. As the Gospel of John (10:10) records Jesus summary of his own teaching, “I came that you may have life and have it to the full.”
The Fifty Days of Easter are an opportunity to grow into a greater understanding of what it means to be fully alive. Recognizing that there is a Divine spark which animates us, the Easter season is a time to nurture the inner light and enable it to burn more brightly. Over the forty days of the Lenten fast, our focus was to remove those things from our lives which shadowed the inner light. Now in this Easter-tide, the light grows brighter illuminating who we were created to be. It’s in this context that fifth century Augustine of Hippo wrote, “We are an Easter people! Alleluia is our song!” Easter is not merely a day but a way of life.
One of the many things I inherited from my ethnic heritage is the celebration of the Easter season. Through the customs, I learned that laughter, joy, happiness, and frivolity are all part of the spiritual dimension of life. Yes, there is a time for fast and a time for feasting, a time to give up and a time to celebrate what has been given. Now for this Easter season, I celebrate being alive. With flowers throughout my home and foods associated with Easter, my focus in these weeks is nothing less than the wonder of being alive. That is the gift of the Resurrection. Let us keep the feast! Alleluia! Amen!
Photo by Bill Gracey 18 Million Views on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND