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Celebrating Easter Every Day?

Honey, I didn't forget our anniversary--I celebrate it every day!

Preposterous, right?  Well, that's what you sound like when you suggest that celebrating the Resurrection on Easter somehow detracts from or contradicts a weekly or daily remembrance thereof.

In the Anglican Communion every Sunday is technically a feast day, and rightfully so.  The Lord's Day is the day on which we celebrate our risen Lord by gathering with His body for Word and Sacrament.  Once a year, however, we, along with the majority of Christians for nearly two millennia, set aside a special day to commemorate the Resurrection in a special way.  We choose to focus on this one doctrine, this indispensable historical event, in a special way on that particular day.

There is no conflict here.  There is no contradiction here.  There is absolutely no reason that celebrating something on a specific day should detract from our continued celebration of it throughout the year.  In fact, the annual celebration ought to fuel our weekly, indeed, our daily, celebration of the Resurrection.

We all know this.  That we choose to celebrate our children's birthdays doesn't imply that we are only glad they're alive that one day a year.  The fact that you celebrate Mother's Day or Father's Day doesn't mean that you love your parents any less the other 364 days of the year.  Remembering a loved one on the anniversary of his passing doesn't lessen how badly you miss him the rest of the year.

God knew that Israel, forgetful and oft-complaining, needed continual reminders of what He had done for them, so He instituted an entire system of holy days.  The Jewish calendar included weekly, monthly, annual, and even semi-centennial reminders of historical events and theological concepts so that the realities of redemption and sin would be ever present to their minds.  

New Testament Christians have been set free from that calendar, along with its tedious, bloody sacrifices, but we are no less forgetful than our Old Testament counterparts.  We are blessed to live in the reality of our position in Christ every day, but most of us need to be reminded, and we need to be reminded often.  The Christian Calendar is designed to keep the drama of redemption before us throughout the entire year.

In sum, some folks are always pushing for this or that when both/and is a perfectly good option.

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