Reflecting on Easter

20 years of no chocolate and beautiful sunrise celebrations

This past weekend we celebrated Easter. As a Christian in a Muslim country, celebrating the past 20 Easters has taken more intentionality than it did when I was in Minnesota. This has been a good thing, with Easter stripped of commercialism and consumerism.

Celebrating Easter in Djibouti has also meant a lot less chocolate. No chocolate. We learned that lesson our first year when we hid chocolate candy inside plastic eggs and then had to wash out the eggs because the chocolate turned to liquid.

(this is one of my favorite Easter pictures)

I am reminded every year at our sunrise service that in this country my faith is a minority faith. That reality forces me to examine it again. Do I believe this wild story about resurrection and new life? Am I able to sit with the pain of Good Friday? What do I do with the massive theological questions about Holy Saturday? (I talked a little bit about the darkness of Holy Saturday on the Upwardly Dependent Podcast recently)

The questions also make me wonder about other people living with a minority faith. How do they celebrate? Do they feel stronger in their convictions by nature of being outsiders? Do they feel threatened? Does spirituality carry a preciousness because of this dynamic?

In Pillars, I wrote about an Easter party and how it led to a complicated conversation with a friend about Trinity and the word/Word. What will change for me about Easter when I celebrate it next year, not in a Muslim-majority country and with all the candy and bunnies and commercialism? How do I carry the lessons I’ve learned into a new context? And, even more importantly because I want to always be growing and transforming, how do I open myself to learning again, in this new context?

I’ll use my own words to inspire myself toward an open, tender heart. May I bring an attitude of expectation, a curiosity ready to experience awe, and a willingness to celebrate. Even in the USA!