As I wrote about last month, Lent is a time when people often adopt special practices to help grow in their faith. Traditionally, these practices reflect Jesus’ time out in the wilderness, focused on fasting from something or praying more. Lenten practices are a powerful way to deepen one’s faith. You still have a few weeks left in Lent to engage in some kind of Lenten practice if you haven’t already started.
But Lent isn’t the only time we could adopt practices to deepen our faith. This month, we will also begin the 50-day season of Easter. I have been wondering lately about the idea of taking on a practice for Easter. What would an Easter practice look like? If our Lenten practices reflect time in the desert with Jesus, an Easter practice would somehow reflect the resurrection and post-resurrection life with Jesus. An Easter practice would reflect new life, helping ourselves and others flourish. An Easter practice would bring us closer together to other people, fostering friendship and reconciliation. An Easter practice would help us live into the baptismal covenant.
Maybe an Easter practice could be to reach out to a fellow parishioner who you don’t know and talking to them over a cup of coffee after church some Sunday. Maybe an Easter practice could be to call up a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while and checking in, asking them how they are and listening to their story. Or to plant some trees, bringing new life to God’s creation that is aching in pain. What would it look like if you cooked dinner and ate as a family every night for the season? Could that be a practice that helps your family flourish? Would an Easter practice of serving people in need by working at the Saturday Breakfast or becoming an advocate for a refugee or asylum-seeker through our work with the Refugee Resettlement Coalition help you live further into your baptismal covenant? Or maybe an Easter practice could be to intentionally offer some little kindnesses like smiling at people you pass on the street and offering a warm greeting.
The possibilities are endless as you figure out what it is that you need to do to live the Easter life. Remember that Lent is only forty days while Easter is fifty. The fast is quickly eclipsed by the feast.
Bingham+
