Jesus Jukin': An African Easter

The congregation sings a Malagasy song while a group of women preform a choreographed dance.*

The sun is rising
The Son is risen
And I rise with them

I watched the soft pastels of early morning play across my yard. There was no doubt this was the dawning of an eventful day. Eventful not just because it was Easter Sunday, but because it was Easter Sunday in Madagascar; eventful not just because it was Easter Sunday in Madagascar, but because I was going to church on Easter Sunday in Madagascar. Chances are, if you attend church in Africa on Easter of all days, there will be dynamic energy and color. I could already sense the day's vibrance as I stood in the morning light.

Dressed up and ready to go, I sauntered over to the village Catholic church with my neighbor. As expected, Easter church hit the ground running in eventfulness from my fist step over the sanctuary's threshold. As unexpected, the actual first eventful occurrence was getting my hair caught in the priest's goatee scruff during the cultural cheek air-kiss, which almost led us to miss and kiss each other on the lips. (Truly, I am the master of first impressions).


It continued to take off from there. (And fortunately, it took off from there in a less comically scandalous direction).

I have never sweat so much during a church service. And this time, the sweat wasn't a result of conviction, but a result of the sweltering heat from over 200 people packed into a concrete tin-roofed un-airconditioned building where the physical temperature matched that of the Holy Spirit's burning fire in the souls of the said collective congregation. But, while my body was certainly dehydrated, my spirit was hydrated af with the Living Water.

I felt the presence of the Lord, oh, I felt Him alright. Imagine your typical Catholic Easter Mass. Now, take that, and add an electric keyboard with lung-busting singing, maniac (yet rhythmic) clapping, and choreographed dance numbers. Now imagine all of that eventually busting into an insanely joyfully energetic (yet still appropriately controlled) congregation-wide dance party. Now imagine the priest in his robes dancing and clapping and singing along with everyone else. Now imagine me, the only white person and the only American in attendance, right in the middle of it all and celebrating too. Then add a special fruit offering ceremony, and you have Easter church 2016 in Mantaly, Madagascar.

So there it is. We sang. We danced. We clapped. We prayed. We communed.  We got sprinkled by holy water from a palm branch. We all came together as one radiant body. We got Jesus-juked like crazy. 

Yeah, I was Jesus-juked for darn sure. Now of course, the entire service was in Malagasy; I think I understood about 40% of all that was literally said. But most of what I didn't understand I could at least piece together from key words or fill in with context clues. And what I did understand was pretty cool. For example, I'm pretty sure we sung about God not being finished with his work in us (in reference to Philippians 1:6). Normally, if I sang about that in English I probably also would've been inspired. But somehow, singing about it in a second language incredibly increases the impact of the words. I wasn't just getting Jesus-juked from the exciting atmosphere... I was getting Jesus-juked from the J-Man Himself. That Jesus-jukin' of the heart was a deep reassurance and reminder of who God is and what that means to me. In perfect accordance with a celebration of Easter, a worn part of my soul was resurrecting in hope and faith. At the core of the wild culture experience was  a sense of peace. And that's something that sticks around long after Easter Sunday is over; it doesn't wear away with the fading energy after the celebration ends. Throwin' up praises in style helped make the experience awesome, but honestly it was just a joyful bonus to that deep resonation of the soul. 

The culture. The radiance. The resurrection power. It was all pretty ritzy. The experience didn't just rise to my expectation for eventfulness, it rose above it. And I, too, rose with it. 

After the service with the priest and my neighbor!

With more of my friends and neighbors after service. Note my 
sweat and frazzled hair.

*Unfortunately, during the most exciting and energetic part towards the end of the church service my phone malfunctioned and I was not able to record it. But this posted video I recorded early-on still captures a lot of the culture!