23 days...

...until the most glorious day on the calendar. Easter!

Easter is the day we celebrate the ultimate victory in creation. God himself took on flesh and spent around 30 years on earth announcing his kingdom's arrival. And then, on the anniversary of his people's great rescue for Egypt (Passover), he took the form of a suffering servant and established his reign by dying in our place. And then on the third day he completed it all by rising from the dead, bringing the dawn of his new creation.

It is too amazing for words!

And yes, I am so excited about it that I'm writing this today. We start celebrating Christmas in October these days, so why should we only celebrate the day that gave Christmas meaning early too?? Early...and late...and always!

It was put so well by N.T. Wright in his book Surprised by Hope:

Easter is about the wild delight of God's creative power...we ought to shout Alleluias instead of murmuring them; we should light every candle in the building instead of only some; we should give every man, woman, child, cat, dog, and mouse in the place a candle to hold; we should build a real bonfire...the thing about Easter is that it is neither ethereal no esoteric. It's about the real Jesus coming out of the real tomb and getting God's real new creation underway.

Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don't throw out hats into the air...Is it any wonder the world doesn't take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom?

But we should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, in children's games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind. This is our greatest festival...Take Easter away and you don't have a New Testament; you don't have a Christianity; as Paul says, you are still in your sins. We shouldn't allow the secular world, with its schedules and habits and parareligious events, its cute Easter bunnies to blow us off course. This is our greatest day. We should put the flags out.

So I'm putting the flags out! I'm anticipating. And I'm planning - maybe for the first time - to give it the celebration it deserves.

He is risen! Let's party!