Celebrating Eastertide
At first glance, the sabering of a champagne bottle is completely unnecessary. If you aren't familiar with this way of opening a champagne bottle it involves getting the bottle extremely cold, finding the seam that runs along the bottle, and running a saber, knife, or even a spoon firmly along the seem; when the saber reaches the lower lip of the bottle, the top will come clean off. You are supposed to allow the champagne to flow for a few seconds before pouring yourself a glass (maybe use a strainer). The dramatics of this show are ostentatious, celebratory, and borderline essential for the Easter season.
When learning how to celebrate the fifty-day feast of Easter --and primarily, the octave-- a distinction needs to be made between wanton waste and ostentatious overflow. It is one thing to be thoughtless and wasteful in your actions and quite another to share the lavishness of thanksgiving with others. Champagne provides a theological and spiritual reminder: there is a reason that you can't put a cork back in the bottle, it is made to drink in celebration, and even more so, it is meant to be shared. Even the fleetingness of the contents is a reminder that this opulent overflow of celebratory thanksgiving is meant to be for a moment. I am not promoting drunkenness or that people go beyond their means, that display would be wantonly wasteful. But I am afraid we have forgotten how to celebrate and feast, especially in a holy and Christian manner.
St. Thomas Aquinas talks about how God created out of the overflow of his love between the persons of the Trinity. God didn't need to create; creation doesn't complete or add anything to him. It is love that overflows to others in a reciprocal action of giving and receiving. Celebration is the outpouring of love in thanksgiving. In a world where it is so easy to become bitter and resentful, let us learn how to celebrate and feast; a heart of thanksgiving is a healing balm to our frustrated souls. It is, in fact, this effusion of lavish gratitude that reflects our Creator and is the proper response of the Christian at Easter to God's redemption of creation.
When it comes to a celebration as great as Easter, there is a necessity in the unessential when it concerns the liturgy. We don't need beautiful music, a plethora of candles, incense, wonderful potlucks, or even champagne to celebrate Easter. Or, at the very least, nothing necessarily needs to change from our normal Sunday service; however, spiritual and theological poverty would soon ensue. We are a worshiping being; we need our hearts and affections rightly ordered to worship God. It is in, what some might term, the "nonessentials" that we are rightly oriented in our worship towards God's greatest work of redemption lived out in Holy Week and culminating in the Feast of the Resurrection. The overflow, the lavishness, the opulence, and the ornamentation of Easter are necessary to order our loves, to teach us the importance of the Resurrection, and to instill in us a heart of gratitude. Without the extravagance of Easter, we are left at the foot of the cross on Good Friday.
We aren’t only people of the Cross; we are people of the Resurrection—these things should not be separated. And so, we feast! Especially during this Eastertide. We feast with one another, and we feast with those who are outcasts and downtrodden for the joy and hope of the Gospel is also for them. We feast with abandon, in love and sacrifice because this is who we are. When we sup together, we look back to the love and sacrifice of Christ, but we also look forward to that heavenly banquet in the joy of the resurrection of Christ and his saving work. Each time we gather together and eat and drink (i.e., coffee hour, family meals, hospitality) we live out this joy, the Joy given to us in the Eucharist, we come together and commune as the Body of Christ, and we participate for that future banquet.
This Eastertide, when you get together with friends and family, or perhaps even mere acquaintances, buy the best steak, or lobster, or cook your special dish and bring out the champagne; saber the bottle, and let it flow in the joy of a holy celebration. We are celebrating the Resurrection of Christ and the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God. And when you feast, and your guests ask the reason for the extravagances, you can reply that you are celebrating the love and joy of Easter. Or perhaps, they may not ask, which is fine, give simply out of the overflow, knowing that what is truly important are the people in front of you and you showing them the love of Christ while entering into the joy of Easter together. We are a people of the Resurrection, not just on Easter day. So, let us feast together this Eastertide for Christ is risen!
The Lord is Risen. Alleluia, alleluia!
Fr. Aaron