Lunar Yuks

Lunar Yuks

Our whacky lunar shenanigans this year are completely charming me with their ironic humor and outright hilarity. Best jokes ever, and boy, have I appreciated the excuse to laugh, for a change.

First up: Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day, this year, is also Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent. Lent, for those of you who don’t know, is the period of many weeks that precedes Easter, and it’s a very somber time in the Christian calendar. We, as a human group, have been very, very bad; and one of us is going to save all of us from ourselves by becoming the ultimate sacrifice.

Catholics, and maybe Episcopalians, go to church on Ash Wednesday to get their foreheads smeared with an oily mix of ashes, in the shape of a cross. “Remember, Man,” the priest intones, looking deeply into their eyes as he makes the ashy symbol on each church members’ forehead, “that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.”

Bummer! Modern translation: Okay, bub, here’s the truth – whatever you like to think about how great and worthwhile you are, actually, you’re nothing - just dirt. Not only that, but you’re going to die, die, die, dirt eternal!

During Lent, many Christians make some sort of sacrifice to honor the ultimate sacrifice the Saviour made. Many of those Lenten sacrifices are to give up something that’s a luxury, or enjoyable – like chocolate!  (When we were kids, my mother the pope gave us special dispensation to take a single day off from our Lenten dessert fast on St. Patrick’s day, so I could eat a piece of my friend Wendy’s birthday cake.) 

So today, after being reminded in pretty basic terms that essentially you’re a worthless clod of dirt, this year you then show up for your Valentine’s Day date, still wearing your ashy cross (because you aren’t supposed to wash it off). Your honey looks deeply into your eyes, and tells you that you’re the most important thing in the world and a cherished gem…and presents you with a lovely, specially-made heart-shaped luxurious dessert that you can’t eat because you just gave up sweet things for Lent!

This year’s celestial layers of irony about one's essential worthiness, and what one gives up and what one is given (remind anyone of a particular Christmas story about haircombs and watches?), have had me giggling all day. But the better celestial joke is yet to come.

Easter is the day the Saviour rose from the dead, saving mankind from – well, from being nothing but an eternal pile of dust, essentially. Through his mercy, we become cherished children of God again. And the Easter Bunny shows up with basketloads of chocolates to reward us for our long Lenten sacrifice.

Except this year – April Fools!