EASTER - A SECOND CLASS HOLIDAY?
        
              Many years ago when my Grandpa was still alive and I was
        living with him, I remember the joy with which he would prepare
        for Easter.  Grandpa expressed no excitement about Christmas.  He
        told me many times, "Anyone can be born.  Ah, but to rise again
        from the dead, that is special."  
              Every Easter, he would walk downtown to East Federal Street
        in Youngstown, Ohio and purchase a nice fat chicken for Easter
        dinner.  This was a live chicken, but Grandpa knew just what to
        do with him.  It was part of the ritual that he brought with him
        from Poland.  Since he could no longer raise his own chickens as
        he had on his own farm in the old country, he did the next best
        thing.  For some reason, that Easter chicken tasted much better
        than one butchered by someone else.  If everything were going
        well that day and my Grandma did not get on him for drinking too
        much Seagrams, he would bring out his accordion and play polkas
        and everyone would sing and dance.  Death and life seemed to be
        one and the same to him.  
              When he died, we celebrated his life and death with a real
        bash after the funeral.  I was told by my Grandma and parents
        that Grandpa would have wanted it that way: to see all of us
        still alive enjoying life.  The dead are dead.  Let the living
        live.
              To many Christians, Easter is a second class affair compared
        to Christmas.  This is due in part of Madison Avenue's marketing
        of it.  Christmas is spending money, buying gifts, Santa Claus,
        and all the other materialistic rituals that we have been led to
        believe are important.
              Each year, I'm sure that many people resolve to celebrate
        the holidays more traditionally.  But we often don't get around
        to it.  This is the modern condition.  
              Carl Jung, who wrote Man and His Symbols, maintained that
        people live in the shadow of symbols of their culture.  Jung
        wrote his treatise many years before we were deluged with the
        slick huckstering of the advertizing world.  Today, many of our
        symbols are ephemeral and change with the whim and fancy of 
        Madison Avenue.
              How much simpler life was when Grandpa's live chicken became
        Easter Sunday's dinner, when children never believed in the
        Easter Bunny, and when the mystery of the Resurrection filled us
        with a sense of awe and wonder.
              Fifty days from now we celebrate Pentecost, the spiritual
        birth of the Christian church.  Will this day pass too like
        Easter with just a moment's hesitation in our busy schedules?   
              I hope not.  
              On Pentecost, the holy spirit descended upon the apostles,
        giving them the power to found the Christian church.  It is
        written in Acts, 1, verses 1-4:  
              And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all
              with one accord in one place.  And suddenly there came a
              sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled
              all the house where they were sitting.  And there appeared
              unto them clove tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon
              each of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost,
              and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave
              them utterance.
              The symbol of the tongues is significant, because it
        represents the universality of all who read, believe and live
        within the context of the new Christian order.  Perhaps Pentecost
        is even more important to those who believe in Christ than the
        other holidays, for at that moment, the church came to life.  
              On the seventh Sunday after Easter, shall we choose to
        celebrate our birthright as Christian people with prayer, with
        renewal, with a childlike sense of the glory of the life and
        death and resurrection of the Lord and our opportunity to live,
        world without end...?
              I heard this the other day.  A man was complaining to his
        friend about how picky his wife was.  "She's so picky that when
        we go to the store she takes hours just to select the most common
        things.  She compares one box of cereal to another just to make
        sure she's getting the most for her money.  She can't just make a
        simple choice.  I don't know what I'm going to do.  I don't know
        if I can take it any more.  Her pickiness is driving me crazy."  
              There was a moment of silence and then the friend said,
        "Gee, isn't it neat that your wife is so picky, mind you, that of
        all the men in this world that she could have picked for her
        mate, she picked you."  
              The light bulb goes on.  You hear, "I never thought about it
        that way before."  This is the essence of reframing the content
        of a message.  Those tongues superimposed upon the apostles'
        heads were the symbol of the power to see the world in a new
        light, in a new frame.  The old order was passing and a new order
        arose from the sepulchre.
              Whether it be in choosing how we believe, worship, or select
        a mate, the most precious gift given to us is our Free Will.  Let
        us use it wisely.