Baxter is ten years old, and he has lived in five places, not counting the animal shelter where he originated. One place in particular he loved. It had a garage with a cement floor, and the garage was attached to the house on the ground level. When I would return home he would be waiting. As I opened the door between the garage and the house, he would come bursting through it into the garage, talking all the while. Then he would fall onto the cement floor and roll on his back and wiggle back and forth. After a few minutes of this stunt, he would roll side to side until I would scratch his belly for a welcome greeting. The last part of the ritual was for him to jump bolt upright on all fours and run into the house, all the while chattering because, of course, dinner was next on the agenda. Only food ever gets Baxter to move fast.
Baxter’s welcome home ritual was something to which I looked forward after a long day. I was never sure whether it was provoked by my return, or by the fact that my return meant he would eat. Probably there was a little of each, with the food primary in driving his enthusiasm. Nevertheless, it was a great show. He would purr and purr through it all, delighted at the cool floor, the anticipated dinner and his servant’s return, in that order. His ritual meant I was home again.
Easter is God’s ritual of delight for us. After not just a day or two, but many millennia of preaching, healing, forgiving and suffering for the people, the fullness of time was accomplished. In Christ, God conquered sin and death, and brought us salvation in the promised new life won on the cross. He must feel delighted. It worked. After human sin’s and nature’s fracturing of goodness marked a world with suffering and pain, now the victory of grace transformed that world by passing through the passion and death to resurrection. It seems too good to be true, too much to believe. That is why we are at a loss for words, except “Alleluia!” That is why we show this mystery in sacramental ways — fire and light, water and oil, bread and wine, all made holy by the appeal to grace’s claim on them.
Easter continues for fifty days of the Church’s liturgical year and for a lifetime of discipleship. We need to relish the wonders of this season and their meaning for our lives. Although we weren’t sure before, now we know that we are never trapped behind locked doors, whether we close them ourselves through our sin, or we are enclosed by the losses, tragedies and disappointments of others. Resurrection keeps opening a door to new life that we need to look for and explore. In this way we share in God’s delight for us and His power to save us. Easter is God’s welcome home to the Kingdom for each of us, where a new and better life is promised. Turn the knob and open the door to let God into your life this season.
May this joyous season be filled with many blessings for you and yours.
