Theologian's Almanac for Week of April 12, 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 12:
April 12 is Easter Sunday, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. It’s one of the few “moveable feasts” in the Christian calendar, floating to a different Sunday each year. Why? Jesus was said to have risen on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring - a sign that, for Christians, the event’s significance is cosmic in scope, its anniversary depending more on the season and the moon than the numerical date on the calendar.
What’s the meaning of Easter today? For those who despair that death-dealing powers have the upper hand - fear not. Easter means God ultimately is and will be victorious over the powers of death. For those who feel isolated and lonely - fear not. Easter means we are all together in the risen Body of Christ, even if we’re physically unable to gather. For those who despair that our guilt is too great for God to forgive - fear not. Easter means God has cleared all accounts, liberating humanity from shame, reconciling us to God and each other as God’s children. For those who despair in the midst of pain and anguish - take heart. You are not alone: Jesus suffers with you in solidarity and companionship, and Easter means you will rise with him. For those who despair over a world filled with hate, violence, and scapegoating - be encouraged. In Christ’s passion, God has taken the place of the scapegoat in order to expose humanity’s violent ways - and Easter means God one day will overcome violence. Indeed, Easter means that God has taken one of the worst things in the world (the Roman cross) and remade it into one of the best (the Tree of Life), a sword into a ploughshare - and if the worst, then also the whole creation in the end! Like the cross, the empty tomb is a great divine mystery, a rising sun dispelling shadows in multiple directions. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
For more on Easter this year, check out SALT’s commentary here.
April 12 is also the day in 1633 that Galileo Galilei was brought before the Inquisition for supporting the idea that the Earth revolves around the sun, rather than the other way around. After agreeing to recant, he was sentenced to indefinite house arrest - and died at home eight years later. But what Galileo said in his defense is worth recalling: he insisted that scientific research and Christian faith are entirely compatible, and that in fact, study of the universe would promote the proper interpretation of Scripture. This is the perfect week to remember and affirm his wisdom - and his brilliance. Indeed, legend has it that immediately after he recanted, as he rose from kneeling before his inquisitors, Galileo defiantly whispered, e pur, si muove (“even so, it does move”).
April 13 is the birthday of American labor lawyer Clara Beyer, born in Middletown, California, in 1892. A contemporary of Eleanor Roosevelt, Beyer served as an adviser to Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins during the Roosevelt administration. In 1935, Beyer, Perkins, and Molly Dewson combined formidable powers to help establish the official act we now refer to as “Social Security.”
Though taxes this year aren’t due until July 15 (because of the Covid-19 pandemic), April 15 is the traditional tax day in the United States - not often understood as a theological event! But taxes, after all, are a primary, tangible means by which we, the people, pool and allocate our collective resources for the sake of the community as a whole: bridges and roads, Medicare and the military, food security and public education. The earliest Christian communities also organized themselves with this basic choreography: pooling and allocating (Acts 4:34-35). Exactly how we pool and allocate remains a subject of intense debate, of course. But in any case, while it’s common to grumble about “paying taxes to the government,” in fact our taxes are one of the most concrete, consequential ways we chip in to support one another - as the ongoing pandemic has made more clear than ever.
April 15 is also the birthday of Leonardo da Vinci, born in Vinci, Italy, in 1452. A man of multiple interests and talents, he’s best known for The Last Supper (worth recalling this week in particular, since that supper itself was commemorated just a few days ago) and of course the enigmatic Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa hangs in the Louvre in Paris, often surrounded by a throng of cell-phone-toting tourists - but just a few feet away is another Leonardo masterpiece that often goes unnoticed: his haunting portrait of John the Baptist, emerging from the shadows, pointing toward the cross.
April 17 is the birthday of Isak Dinesen, born Karen Dinesen near Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1885. Growing up, she loved listening to stories from Danish mythology, and became a writer at an early age. After a failed effort at running a coffee plantation in Kenya, she returned to writing - choosing “Isak” as a pen name, the Danish version of “Isaac” from the Bible, which means, “laughter.” Her breakthrough book was Seven Gothic Tales, full of magical realism and wild adventures, and she went on to one of the most celebrated literary careers of the twentieth century, including her short story, “Babette’s Feast,” and her classic memoir, Out of Africa.
Like her life and writing, her theology is shot through with adventurous wit. “Truth is for tailors and shoemakers,” she wrote. “I, on the contrary, have always held that the Lord has a penchant for masquerades.” And again: “God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.”
April 17 is also the birthday of the American novelist and playwright, Thornton Wilder, born in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1897. Wilder won Pulitzer prizes both for his novel, “The Bridge of San Luis Rey,” and his beloved play, “Our Town,” one of the most-produced plays in American history. Each work shimmers with theological themes. The novel is the story of a bridge that collapses in 18th-century Lima, Peru, killing the five people crossing it - and a Franciscan friar who, after witnessing the tragedy, tries to figure out why those five people had to die. And “Our Town” is what Wilder called “a little play with all the big subjects in it; and it’s a big play with all the little things of life lovingly impressed into it... an immersion into a New Hampshire town.” One of its principal characters, Emily, famously says, “O Earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? - every, every minute?” These are lines worth recalling, especially as the 50th anniversary of Earth Day approaches, on April 22!