Easter in Germany

It's already been a lot, and it's not even here yet.

Easter is a big deal here in Germany.

The Berlin shops have been overflowing with Easter candy, cake mixes, decorations, and flowers. Decorations are everywhere, in every garden and shop window. My son celebrated at school on two separate days, one with two hours of dedicated craft time and a second with an egg hunt at a playground. I had to send blown-out eggs to school for the craft day. Thankfully, eggs aren’t that expensive here--about 2€ a dozen--because that is clearly a skill I have not cultivated as an American. Both Easter celebration days included copious treats, including foil-clad bunny chocolates and the most vibrant dyed eggs I’ve ever seen.

Naturally, the school celebrations were of the Easter Bunny variety rather than the Church variety, which I fully support, though we have had our share of religion this week, too. Chris and I took our daughter--she who has a real flair for enforcing proper hand folding for the pre-dinner obligatory prayer and who loves few things more than to sing through the songbook from my church camp days--to the Berliner Dom for Palm Sunday. We figured if she's going to find religion, it better be from us rather than the hellbent Evangelicals out there.

The Berliner Dom is the largest protestant cathedral in Germany and is second in the world only to the Yoida Full Gospel cathedral in South Korea. It's not that old either--completed in 1905. In line with the Reformation and in contrast with other majestic cathedrals I’ve been lucky to see, there are no saints on display. The area above the pulpit is topped with a life-size statue of Martin Luther himself, and other Reformers circle the nave. The service was presided over by a female pastor.

I’m not really a church person anymore. I was once, when the built-in community and lowered social barriers were a balm to my awkward soul. But when church friends who were happy to chat and giggle with me at the Wednesday night youth group refused to acknowledge me in the halls of junior high, I lost a lot of faith in the social aspects. Come high school, I found myself searching at church for answers to hard questions and coming up short. I loved working at church camp and Chris and I spent our early marriage living in student housing at the Lutheran School of Theology where he got his first Masters. Church has been a big part of my life, but it’s not a big part of my life now. I’ve made my peace with that, but I did have both of my children baptized, just in case.

Nostalgia and wishful thinking are perhaps what led me to tag along to the heart of Berlin’s tourist district on a beautiful Sunday morning for a Palm Sunday service. Chris and our daughter had been planning to go, and it was exactly what we should have expected, if we had paused to think about it rather than idealize it. Too much German, way too long, not really the place for a busybody four year old. And the commute with a four year old in uncomfortable sparkly shoes navigating via scooter from the train station through throngs of tourists? Unsubscribe me from that shit.

But it was interesting and I’m glad we went. The cathedral itself is beautiful, and if you go to the service, you don’t have to pay admission to see it. Thanks Martin! There was a children’s church section where the kids got to decorate pillar candles with wax flakes and wax paint. They then proceeded to ALL carry lit candles back into the church service, blowing them out and then relighting them from each other’s flames. Very laissez-faire German adult oversight, but no one burned the place to the ground. The music wasn’t quite the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack that I was jonesing, but a centenarian pipe organ can shake the ground with aplomb. They offered my daughter communion which baffled both her and me. Equally surprising, she ate the styrofoam wafer without complaint.

In the early parts of this week the excitement has been building. Every shrub seems to be decorated with little easter eggs, there are posters advertising festive egg hunts, egg decorating, and even German class has discussed Easter plans and traditions, with more Jesus than I would have expected. I did learn that, at least in Germany, Easter is officially a two-day holiday--Sunday and Monday. Also, and maybe not surprisingly, the teens and twenty-somethings in my class seemed flabbergasted that Easter is the biggest Christian holiday in the world. Actually, if they had any knowledge of the Easter Bible story, they sure fooled me. In my amazement of that, it became abundantly clear to me that I’m of a different generation. Not funny how that has snuck up on me.

The rest of the week will unfold how it will. Shops are all closed on Friday and the buzz is likely to increase. Me, I’m along for the ride. I will put together Easter baskets and take my kids to an egg hunt. Who knows if church is on our agenda, we’re probably good for the next 5-7 years after last Sunday, anyways. We’ll eat a big meal together and enjoy the days off and the beautiful spring that is unfurling around us.

And hopefully there will be plenty of chocolate on sale when the shops open up again on Tuesday.