This is Part I of a three-part Easter message.

April 2006

Dear Friends,

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

While most of you in America are celebrating Easter, in Romania it is Flower Day—Palm Sunday! We are just beginning Holy Week here.

I would like to share a slightly different tradition about Palm Sunday, which I learned from my Romanian Orthodox friends.

Instead of palm branches, the Orthodox Church gives out weeping willow branches to put over your doorposts. The tradition says that the palm branches thrown before Jesus turned to weeping willows after the crucifixion. There is a traditional hymn about the children making weeping-willow crowns for Jesus. I believe this carries the bitter-sweetness of Palm Sunday—a day of happiness, but with sadness about what is yet to be.

Flower Day is a fish holiday. The Orthodox fast from animal products during Lent, but on certain days they are allowed to eat fish. As I was walking from the Baptist Church with Aurelia to go to the Orthodox Church to get my willow branches, the not so pleasant smell of fish was wafting very strongly through the air. Everyone was out on the streets carrying their willow branches and hurrying home for their fish dinners.

I went to a fish dinner, and I ate one piece of fish. I did not have to eat the head, even though it was served to me. This represents progress for me: it means I am no longer an honored guest who has every mouthful interpreted as to my likes and dislikes. I can eat with everyone else. I got away with eating only one piece of bread loaded down with garlic-flavored caviar. Then for dessert I had four pieces of pumpkin pie (bite-size pieces). I was served a cup of coffee and a glass of beer at the same time. It was a wonderful feast. In the taxi on the way home I smelled like garlic, beer, fish, and cigarettes. Everyone here smokes, and even if you are a devout non-smoker like me, your clothes absorb the odor. For many people these feasts are what the holiday is all about. This is not all wrong. People are happy they can have a feast. In the past, food was not available—even making a pie in the oven was impossible, so there is much to be thankful for. Jesus was always at one feast or another, so he would have probably been at a Romanian fish dinner, too.

At he Palm Sunday service in the Baptist Church, the preacher reiterated his point many times, which is good when you do not understand everything. Flower Day, he said, was at least one day when all the people showed their appreciation for Jesus, as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. They went out to praise him—not to beg from him. We should follow the crowd and be grateful for this one day.

Today—for one day only—we should say, “Thank you”—not “Gimme, gimme, gimme.”

Today, we should stop whining and saying “I don't have food, drink, clothes, etc. Jesus gave us himself so we can’t say we don’t have this or that. You don’t have bread; Jesus is the bread. You don’t have anything to drink; Jesus is the wine. You don’t have meat on your table; Jesus is the sacrificial lamb. And on this today we give him praise. The preacher said a lot more. His sermons are always exactly one hour, and church is always exactly two hours. This follows two hours of Bible study and prayer.

The most glorious part of this Baptist church is the magnificent singing. Today they sang as an anthem with the congregation joining in “Jerusalem, Jerusalem—Open Wide Your Gates.”

This struck me in the gut. Just last year I was in Israel—and I thought things could not be any worse in Israel—but they are. The gates are shut tight—no one gets in or out—except Israeli citizens. We are having our own border wars in America. The gates are not open.

The forces of darkness seem to rule the world. Greed, fear, hatred, and suspicion are rampant across our delicate planet. We are on a sure path of doom. But then we remember the Prince of Peace rode in on a baby donkey 2,000 years ago. Riding in on this lowly donkey, Jesus ushers in a new way sometimes called the Third Way. Following his triumphal entry, darkness seemed to have its way with Jesus, nailing him brutally on a cross—but this was not the end of the story. Darkness was followed by the greatest glory. God had—and still does—the last word and that word is “love”!

Today we have the same war going on. Some call it a war on terror. However, it is the same old same old—the war of hate against hate. When hate fights hate—hate always wins. There will never be any winners in this war. The war of hate is even in our churches, here in Romania and in America. Let’s be honest: Our human ways are not working. Why not try the way. Why not wage peace! It takes courage to ride through the gates of Jerusalem on a donkey—wearing the crown of the weeping willow. Yes, we might get shot. Look at what happened recently to the Christian Peacemaker Team in Baghdad. We might be ridiculed. But people just might be ready to try the Christian Way. People might just run into the streets and shout with joy. Since when did Christians become wimps? We have nothing to fear. We cannot let another year go by and let Easter degenerate into merely a feast day or a day for the Easter Bunny. This is really the day to celebrate peace and new beginnings and the resurrection. We need to resurrect our courage.

We need to get out in the streets in our communities and throw some flowers around and shout, “Hosanna to the King.” On Easter Eve, the Orthodox actually do this. At midnight on Easter evening, they gather in the churchyards and sing and pray all night. For the benefit of those who do not go to church, the service is broadcast all over the city by loudspeaker. After getting your candle lit at church, everyone parades through the city with their candles, spreading the light. You are not supposed to go to church on Easter morning if you are carrying a grudge against anyone. People make up with each other. People say they are sorry. People forgive. People turn the other cheek.

Try a Romania tradition for the 50 days until Pentecost. When you greet someone, instead of saying “How are you?” say “Christ is risen!”

He is risen indeed! Let’s resurrect our courage. Resurrect our hope! Resurrect our love!

Mary Ferris

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 182