Back to Work (Bright Year: Day 9)

Were you a medieval peasant, today you would be returning to work after a two week vacation.  For Christianized lands at least, the institutional Church put pressure on rulers to observe Holy Week and all of Bright Week (in the west, Easter Week). 

What would you have been doing the past week?  It turns out, going to a lot of plays.  Easter season was a time for theater.  They could depict the Christ narratives or other biblical scenes for the illiterate.  As far back as the twelfth century, Paul B. Newman notes, the local citizenry would act out events from the lives of the saints and martyrs.  Miracle plays abounded.  Let’s watch Boniface chop down Thor’s oak!  Let’s watch virgin Ursula defy her pagan fiance and get shot by an arrow!  In medieval Europe they were sometimes called “mystery plays,” in part because of the mystery of the resurrection, in part because they were sponsored by the mystères, the local trade guilds.

Those medievals had it good.  So next year ask for more time off.  Tell your employer you’re going to the Sanford-Billion plays.

[Bright Year is a series exploring how the good news of Jesus’ resurrection shines over every day of the year. Read more at www.sevensided.org/bright-year]