An egg by any other name…
The shape of an egg is unmistakable even as simple as it is. This means that all sorts of things can be called “eggs” even if they have no yolk and no capacity to form and deliver new life. The Easter Eggs our little ones will hunt on Sunday have a hard plastic shell filled with sugary goodness. The mini chocolate eggs I keep hidden in my desk drawer have a hard candy shell with the best possible filling (in my humble opinion). There are famous eggs like those of the Fabergé variety and simple eggs we pull out of our garage for decoration every year. The only thing these all have in common is their shape.
There is something so intuitive about that shape that it defines every other thing that looks like an egg. This comes to mind as we prepare to observe and celebrate the Triduum in church this week. The Triduum is the church word for the three days beginning with Maundy Thursday, enduring through Good Friday, and arriving at Easter Sunday. On the crux of these three days pivots every other thing that has ever happened and reflection upon these events is inexhaustible. That said, everything that happens during Holy Week reveals the essential identity of who God is in Jesus Christ.
Like the easily identifiable egg, when we see Jesus, we just know it is him. On Thursday, we get the story of Jesus instituting the very feast we share on Sundays and then getting down on his hands and knees and washing the feet of his present friends. On Friday, we hear of that same Jesus being tried, convicted, and killed on the cross. On Sunday, we celebrate the resurrected Jesus giving us the promise of the Good News of new and eternal life in him. Every iteration is so identifiably Jesus. There is something so deeply identifiable about who God is in Jesus Christ that the events of the Triduum are clearly and coherently revelatory of him. There is no one else like him and there is no other event like the Triduum. Come and see.
We love you and God loves you,
Josh Condon+