CHRISTMAS AND EASTER ON
THE SAME DAY
December 2005
article for the Collect, publication for St. Thomas Episcopal Church,
Medina, WA
This year, Christmas and Easter fall on the same day. You don’t believe me? Read on.
On a crisp, sunny Sunday morning when I was 11 years old, my family bundled up in coats, hats and gloves. We squeezed into our old blue Pinto and drove ten blocks to church. The building was as empty as a tomb.
My mom, my brother and I filed into the front pew. My dad stood before us, prayer book in hand. He began to read: “Blessed be God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
We replied, “And blessed be his kingdom, now and for ever. Amen.”
I thought this was hilarious: just our nuclear family, the four of us, walking through the Eucharist together. Where was the rest of the congregation?
It was Christmas morning. Doubtless, all the other parishioners were enjoying their gifts at this very moment. But Christmas fell on a Sunday that year, so my family was in church.
Not only did I find the situation funny, but I also thought it was more than a little inconvenient. Hadn’t we had enough church the previous night? Couldn’t we just take the week off? Couldn’t my dad have announced well ahead of time that there would be no need for a Sunday service that week?
But the most major feast in the church—Sunday—happens every seven days. Furthermore, every Sunday is an Easter celebration—even when it falls on Christmas! And this weekly observance of Easter trumps every other observance.
Regular church attendance is a kind of holy inconvenience: going to a place I didn’t choose, at a time I didn’t choose … for a purpose I do choose. Each week’s Easter celebration includes a chance to praise God, to hear and reflect on God’s Word, to pray for those in need, to make peace with each other and with God, and finally, to share a meal.
By celebrating the birth of Jesus on Christmas Eve, we follow the Jewish tradition by which the day begins at sundown. Then, by celebrating Easter every Sunday morning, we follow the Christian tradition of coming to the tomb at dawn and finding it empty.
So this Christmas Eve, join us at sundown to celebrate the coming of the Light of God into the world. The place will be packed: packed like a delivery room full of family waiting for the birth.
Then get up early in the morning (as you surely do anyway), open presents with your family, and come to the tomb. You won’t find a corpse there. But the tomb won’t be completely empty, either, for wherever two or three are gathered together, God is in the midst of them. And Christmas is a time for family: whether it’s just your nuclear family worshipping together, or the much larger family of God in Christ.