How do you know it’s Easter?

In America it’s easy – weeks before the big day, the aisles at Target overflow with pastel-packaged candy and plastic grass, lilies decorate the ends of grocery store counters, and the kitchen smells like vinegar from 49-cent PAAS egg dying kits.

Not so in Thailand.

My pastor, King, came into the office yesterday with a question.  The conversation went something like this:

King: “Do most Americans know when Easter is?”

Me: “Oh yes.”

King: “So how do you know when Easter is going to be?”

Me: “Well, it follows Passover…” (I didn’t want to explain the commercialization of the holiday)

King: “I looked it up today and on the internet it said that Easter is always the Sunday after the first full moon after the first equinox.  So, do Americans all know that?”

Me: “No. I didn’t know that.”

King: “So, how do Americans know when Easter is going to be?”

Me: (suddenly the light went on) “It’s on our calendar.”

In a Buddhist nation, holidays like Easter and Christmas don’t make it onto the printed calendar, while all the Buddhist holidays do (and if you don’t see a holiday on the calendar, you figure it out when your first, second, and third ideas for a place to eat lunch are closed).  But that doesn’t change the fact that … it’s Easter!  I am so thankful for a God who loved us so much to send His Son to us, to die for us and take away our sin… and for a God who is more powerful than death and who offers us life with Him if we believe!  And this is the good news that I’m here in Thailand to share.  I’m celebrating this Easter by rejoicing in the new life that God gives me every day.

Happy Easter!