Thursday, April 5, 2012

I could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet



The Word for today:
Mark 2:13-3:6

mark this:
No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.
And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins--and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins." 
(Mark 2:21-22)

When I was a little kid, Easter was not as much about Easter baskets as it was about Easter bonnets.

When we went to Easter Sunday Mass, every single item we wore was brand new! New trousers, new shirt, new jacket, new belt, new shoes, new haircut.

All of this newness, of course, was recorded by my Dad’s trusty Brownie camera, which came out for Easter Sunday and then got put away until the next Easter. (So if you see any pictures of me prior to about 13 years old, our family appears to be quite well-to-do and I am a walking fashion statement. O, how the magic box lies!)

I don’t think my parents actually associated the new Easter clothes with new life in the resurrected Christ.  (If they did, they didn’t tell my brother and sisters and me.) But now I consider the new bonnet to be a far more appropriate Easter tradition than the bunny-in-a-basket trick that we currently practice.

Jesus ushered in a new day and a new way:
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:17)

This isn’t patchwork, this is revolution.
He came to provide a new garment, the robe of righteousness, for those who do nothing more than trust in Him. He has not come to sew patches on an old garment:
No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. (Mark 2:21)

I’ve got nothing against bunnies and baskets and jelly beans, but when it comes to meaningful Easter traditions, I could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet.

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