Theologian's Almanac for Week of April 5, 2020
Welcome to SALT’s “Theologian’s Almanac,” a weekly selection of important birthdays, holidays, and other upcoming milestones worth marking - specially created for a) writing sermons and prayers, b) creating content for social media channels, and c) enriching your devotional life.
For the week of Sunday, April 5:
April 5 is Palm Sunday, commemorating Jesus’ jubilant entry into Jerusalem. It’s essentially a piece of street theater dramatizing Zechariah’s ancient prophecy: the long-awaited divine monarch arrives on a humble donkey, announcing “peace to the nations” (Zech 9:9-10). Shout hosanna! The new era, the Great Jubilee, has begun! For more on Palm Sunday, see SALT’s commentary here.
April 6 is the birthday of Italian painter and architect Raphael, born Raffaello Sanzio in Urbino, Italy, in 1483. He was deeply influenced by Leonardo da Vinci, but departed from his teacher by creating figures with gentle, serene faces and forms. Over his lifetime, he produced more than 300 portraits on the “Madonna and Child” theme, including his famous Sistine Madonna.
April 7 is the birthday of jazz singer Billie Holiday. In 1999, Time magazine declared her song, “Strange Fruit,” the “song of the century.” The song was originally written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish school teacher, poet, and activist from New York City. A photograph of a lynching in Indiana some years earlier had deeply disturbed Meeropol, inspiring him to write “Strange Fruit,” and the song eventually made its way to the Greenwich Village nightclub where Holiday sang. As a way of raising awareness about lynching, Holiday adopted the song as her signature: at the end of her show each night, the club would bring down all the lights, pause all table service, and put a single spotlight on Holiday as she sang the haunting anthem. For a modern, wonderfully theological take on the song and its story by the virtuoso preachers Frank Thomas and Julian DeShazier, check out SALT’s Emmy-winning short film here (or press play below).
April 8 is this year’s beginning of Passover, the Jewish commemoration of the Israelites’ exodus out of Egypt, from slavery to freedom. The holiday is marked in many Jewish homes by a Passover seder, a festive meal dramatizing the exodus through stories, song, and ritual foods (such as matzah (unleavened bread) and maror (bitter herbs)).
April 8 is also widely celebrated as the Buddha’s birthday. Born Prince Siddhartha in sixth-century-BCE India, Gautama Buddha was raised in wealth and privilege - but at age 29, he decided to venture out beyond the palace walls. His encounters with suffering in the wider world inspired him to become a spiritual teacher, eventually outlining Buddhism’s “four noble truths”: 1) all life involves suffering; 2) the root cause of suffering is craving; 3) an awakened state free of craving (and therefore of suffering) is attainable; and 4) there is a practical path - the “Noble Eightfold Path” - toward this awakened state. There are many connections and resonances between the Buddha’s and Jesus’ teaching; explore them by reading Thich Nhat Hanh, Paul Knitter, and many others.
April 9 is Maundy Thursday, “maundy” from the Latin mandatum, “command” or “mandate,” a reference to the “new commandment” Jesus gives his disciples on the eve of his death: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). Not an abstract or generic “love,” then, but a love “just as I have loved you”: compassionate and tangible, as simple and strong as kneeling to wash someone’s feet and then drying them with a towel (John 13:1-15).
April 10 is Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. All four Gospels link the crucifixion to Passover, a clear signal that we should understand his death first and foremost as a sign that God is once again liberating God’s people, inaugurating a New Exodus in the tradition of the exalted exodus from Egypt.
April 10 is also the birthday of Anne Lamott, beloved author and hilarious, down-to-earth Christian disciple. Here’s some vintage Lamott, perfect for the season of Lent (or all year round!): “I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.” And here’s Lamott’s instant-classic TED talk on “everything I know for sure.”
April 11 is Holy Saturday, for Christians a day of silence and waiting, and also the day, it is said, when Jesus “descended into Hell” to free those held captive there. It is a day of shadows and ambiguity, a time of mourning and hope-against-hope. Holy Saturday’s silence is broken by the “Alleluia” of the late-night Easter Vigil - or the dawn of Easter morning.