THREE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ONE OR TWO

There are three great feasts in the life of the church. Each depends on the other two to be relevant in our lives as Christians. In our daily lives, however, one takes precedence over the other two. What is interesting is that this one is the one which we celebrate the least as individual believers, if we, in fact, personally celebrate it at all. As unbelievable as that may seem, I think it is true.

The three feasts? Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. In order of how we celebrate these feasts, Christmas wins hands down. We spend weeks getting ready for Christmas and the celebration can linger well into the next year, till Epiphany. Every home in my neighborhood was decorated from early December and the decorations did not come down until mid-January. Part of that reason, perhaps, sadly, the main part is that Christmas is more holiday than holy day. The real reason for the day and the season is the celebration of the birth of Jesus; but all too often, the Baby Jesus gests buried under the Christmas wrappings.

Then there is Easter. Christmas would have no real meaning were it not for Easter. Without the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, Jesus’ death would only be like millions of other deaths: an innocent man killed out of jealousy or anger, like what happens every day on our city streets, like Cain and Able way back when. So we should celebrate Easter. And we do. It takes three days, max, to prepare for the holiday and even less for the holy day. And it’s all over come Monday morning.

Christmas celebrates God becoming one of us to remind us, once again, what God expects of us and what we should expect of ourselves: to love God above all else and to love everyone else as we love ourselves. Jesus was killed because of that message, but God raised Jesus, I believe, to tell us that there is always resurrection to new life after a death, however and whatever the death. So we need to celebrate that truth by celebrating Jesus’ resurrection on Easter.

Then there is Pentecost, God’s sending us the Holy Spirit, without which the celebration of Christmas and Easter would have no meaning. We may be Easter People, as some preachers like to remind us; but we are Easter People only in and through Pentecost, in and through the life of the Holy Spirit living and breathing all though us, giving whatever grace and strength we need to love others when it seems impossible to do; to find resurrection and new life when some kind of death has come our way: loss of health, loss of job, loss of relationship, etc.

And yet, as important as Pentecost is in the life of the church and especially in our individual lives as Christians, we seem to fail to give it its proper due. Then, too, maybe that’s as it should be. It is as if we simply take for granted God’s working in and through us and are thankful, as we should be.