Fly Forward

 I love the church calendar and the way it accentuates the rhythm of being human.  I'm learning about it.  I grew up in a church that didn't acknowledge or operate out of the church calendar.  So, I'm new to its rhythms.  It makes so much sense.....Lent and Easter were unbelievably significant this year.  Easter has always been important in the past, but observing the season for 46 days, there was such a climax on Easter Sunday that I had never experienced before.  So often, I think we skip over Ash Wednesday and all the darkness and death that leads up to the glorious resurrection that we can't fully feel the implications of all of it.  I had the privilege of sharing in the Lenten season with a couple ladies in my studio during the last 4 weeks of Lent and it was such a rich time of sharing and encouragement.  We concluded our wonderful time together with a Seder meal demonstration.  What a beautiful ritual that is full of rich symbolism.  Every time I do it, I catch something different.  The Seder meal is the passover meal that celebrates the Old Testament Exodus of the Jewish people out of Egypt.  And it was the passover meal that Jesus and His disciples were partaking of on the eve of His death in which He instituted the Eucharist.  Two of the passover meal elements become something else on that evening; the unleavened bread and one of the 4 cups served, the third cup being the Elijah cup.  The unleavened bread signified the haste in which they had to leave; they only ate unleavened bread on their journey because they didn't have time to allow the bread to rise.  At one point during the meal, they hide a piece of the bread, symbolizing the hidden Messiah who has not yet been revealed.  What did Jesus do that night, when He knew who He was and what His destiny was??  Rather than hiding Himself, He revealed Himself as The Bread Of Life.  Jesus then took the Elijah cup and made it the cup of His blood, the cup of salvation.  Really remarkable and beautiful, as are the other elements of the meal....