Dreaming of Easter

The Churches looks terrific at Christmas

Chief amongst our decorations at All Hallows this year

is a stark wooden treetop

with bright red balls decorating its austerity.

Not being the instigator or creator of this artistic expression

My first reaction was to wonder what the symbolism might be.

And R, the artist's wife, said to me..."It's the drops of blood"

This seems far removed from Christmas

and more fitting for Good Friday and Easter

but there is an ancient and venerable tradition

of linking or foreshadowing Easter at Christmas

Often in paintings of the stable at Bethlehem

you look into the distance

and there you see

three crosses on a distant hill.

It is like "Love and Marriage"

You can't have one without the other.

I don't expect the world to get this.

But Christians should readily understand

that true love

is not just about parties and celebration

not just about tinsel and presents.

True love, which we celebrate

at Christmas

is also about passion, sacrifice and, often, pain

which we focus on at Easter.

If we are to truly open ourselves to love

then we will be opening ourselves to the possibility

even the likelihood

that we will be hurt.

Love is a risky business.

It is so often why people hold themselves back.

And so often why our love is shallow or non-existence.

Every parent knows that the child they love so much

can also be the source of the greatest pain.

And every lover

knows that it is the person who they love

who can hurt them the most.

We do not need to bemoan this at Christmas

but rather to recognise

that Christmas

is on the road to Easter.

That the Christmas Tree

prefigures the Cross.

That the manger is also the wood

of the tree where Christ is crucified.

Christmas is beginning, the birth.

Easter is the climax. And the fulfilment.

May we look forward with joy

to true love.

And pray that we may have the grace to endure it.