When people ask me if we’re roasting a whole lamb on the spit for Easter Sunday, I tell them a story:
I tell them we sold our suburban home at the beginning of this coronavirus shutdown and found refuge in a green and peaceful land called the Shire. We live among the tiny, gentle Hobbits, in the Middle Earth Congressional district.
Taxes are low, there’s no crime to speak of, and Hobbit politicians are reasonably honest. They have six hairy toes and proudly walk about barefoot, even the governor. As an outlander, I prefer boots.
We live in a cozy Hobbit hole in the side of a green hill, across from a brook and an old windmill. It’s all so very quaint. Everything is quaint around here. Maybe too quaint.
But there isn’t much whole lamb roasting for Easter going on.
And that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. For now.
Sunday is Easter Sunday for Orthodox Christians. Last week was Easter for Western Christians. This week, we Greeks, and the Serbians, Russians, Armenians, Bulgarians, Albanians, and so many others celebrate Easter.
Many of the Orthodox roast the lamb the way it’s been done for thousands of years, and as we did it at our old house for about 20 years or so.
Our new Hobbit neighbors aren’t partial to roast lamb. They love mince pies, delicious blackberry tarts, slabs of butter and ripe cheese on toast. They’re not big on garlic. We haven’t seen one head of garlic since we got here.
You need plenty of garlic, lemon, lemon zest and salt, pepper and oregano to spit-roast a whole lamb slowly over coals for a proper Easter feast.
Yet with each of us still hunkering down in our homes to protect against transmission of the virus, this isn’t the time for large extended family gatherings.
Besides, our sons won’t be with us to roast the lamb in this time of distancing. They’ve watched me for years, fascinated by the fire as little boys, and later they helped season it and learned to time the cook by the crispiness of the skin and the wobble of the joints as the lamb turned.
They learned how to keep the fire constantly low and slow and when to add chunks of cherry wood or dried grapevine for smoke.
Last year was their first time to take on the tradition. They’re men now, and I didn’t want to hover. I told you, and I told them, that I wouldn’t hover and tell them what to do. But I couldn’t help it. So, I hovered just a bit. Sue me.
This Easter, with all that’s going on, we’re not having that big extended family feast like those I’ve been telling you about for years now.
There’s just the two of us.
No cousins we haven’t seen for a while, catching up on all that’s gone on in their lives. No uncles hovering outside telling us how to roast the lamb. No aunts in the house, no dear sisters-in-law and other in-laws helping Betty. No brothers to help slice the lamb. No nieces and nephews to amaze us.
And no friends stopping by to lift a glass of ouzo, no generations together, once so loud and happy in celebration.
No sons.
And no whole roast lamb on a spit.
Many of you went through this last week. We’re going through it now. The quiet is difficult, strange. I’ve thought of what it would be to have quiet for once. But when quiet is forced upon you, it is a different beast altogether.
For many last week, and for us this week, Easter isn’t about the food. Or about chocolate bunnies or the peeps, not even Aunt Helen Nahabedian’s Broken Glass Torte Jell-O dessert or Betty’s galaktoboureko.
It’s about something else entirely. A new religion grows, and their high priests call on the people to put their faith in science and government alone. Don’t be too shocked, but we appreciate science, too, and know that civilized societies require reasoned governance.
But those who follow the old religions, like mine, the Orthodox, which to us means “never changing,” put our faith elsewhere. And in this season, two old religions, Judaism and Orthodoxy, are bound together. And the lamb is central to the binding.
The Jews sprinkled lamb’s blood on their doors as a signal to God to keep the angel of death away during the plague. The blood was a signal and death passed over their homes, sparing the righteous. Passover. The Hebrew word is Pesach.
And Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, arrived in Jerusalem for Passover, and the lamb of God was crucified, and, we Christians believe, was resurrected on the third day according to the Scriptures. Our Greek word for Easter is “Pascha,” from the Aramaic and Hebrew words for Passover.
Pascha. Pesach. Passover. Easter.
I’m no theologian, just a husband and father. On Sunday we’ll look outside and won’t see the boys or the lamb. And for all the years that I’ve stubbornly written that “Easter isn’t about the food,” it strikes home this year more than ever.
But that is a blessing too. Distractions fall away. What remains is a fine, internal quiet. Though many are in despair, many others find this a time for joy, even in the relative silence.
Because the light still comes forth at midnight. And although the churches may be closed, still we sing, Christos Anesti!
Christ is Risen.
Happy Easter.
Listen to “The Chicago Way” podcast with John Kass and Jeff Carlin — at www.wgnradio.com/category/wgn-plus/thechicagoway.
Twitter @John_Kass
