Someone thought this was a good idea for Easter dessert. “I know! Let’s ingest an instrument of torture and death in the form of a cake!” I know it’s an empty cross, darlings, but still. PeaceBang does not think we need to bake symbols of the most profound mysteries of God into sugary treats. She purses her lips in Puritan disapproval:
I just sternly informed my friend that she is not allowed to attend Good Friday services in jeans.
PeaceBang wishes you a blessed Easter vigil. It’s a deep day.
I’m attending church tonight in jeans 😛
I still say “resurrection rolls” are the worst. Jesus is not a marshmallow. And he didn’t melt!
The Easter after I got baptized (on a Palm Sunday) I got a chocolate cross in my Easter Basket instead of a Bunny.
My husband just convinced me to let him wear jeans to service tonight! I guess I’d rather have him there in jeans than not there at all.
I’m in the tropics in an Asian context right now and have had to let go of a lot of my East Cost ideas about propriety: bare arms, bare legs, bare feet and shorts are the norm. Clergy celebrate in sandals if not barefoot, many of our East Asian congregants won’t wear shoes in the sanctuary or sacristy or if they do, not to receive the sacrament. All the kids wore shorts and t-shirts when leading the Stations of the Cross. Tropical print Hawaiian and Tahitian shirts and dresses are the norm, even for clergy, sometimes with clergy collars.
I did wear jean like pants to services but our Good Friday service is never very formal. Hat and gloves on Easter, for me, however. But, I could not agree more heartily about the cross caek. A cross of any type on a celebratory food item just does not make sense.
Glad to see I’m not the only one who wore jeans tonight.
I wore jeans, and I officiated! (though I did have them under a cassock, and I rolled them up and wore nice shoes, so they didn’t show…)
[GOD SAW THOSE JEANS. GOD SEES YOUR JEANS, SINNER. – PB]
Perhaps the story is best told by the empty pan.
Context! I attended Earth Day Good Friday services at a combination Intentional Christian Community / Community Supported Agriculture Project that worships at a farmhouse and hosted the stations of the cross in the fields. I wore a nice pair of jeans and was almost overdressed. Most of the time, though, I would be completely on board with PB’s stern admonition.
I’m also on board with the Puritan disapproval of trying to bake symbols of the profound mysteries of God into sugary treats, but with one hesitation: what about Hot Cross Buns? Can we have a special dispensation for Hot Cross Buns? Somehow they don’t seem as tacky to me as cross cakes or chocolate crosses. [Yes, they’re fine. Love, Cotton Mather – PB]
9 or so years ago I was at a church with screens and power point (don’t tsk – it has it’s uses!). I preached that the parallel to the cross nowadays was the electric chair, and showed a slide of a real electric chair morphing into a lovely necklace charm. THAT got a reaction – yowsa.
Of course, NOW I’d have to do it with a hypodermic needle, or an IV bag. But I don’t have screens at this church, so I don’t have to worry about it.
All that said, I do usually wear a cross, both as an external witness and an internal reminder of the cost of discipleship.
And I’m totally fine with “Come As You Are” for parishioners. I try to look nice and appropriate, though.
My sense that the hot cross bun is different probably comes from its long history – they were certainly around in Britain in Tudor times and Puritan times when they would get banned occasionally as too “Papist”. They’re a kind of compromise between Lent and celebration too, some fruit and spices, but also a dough cross (or cut cross) on top.
Our congregation at the Three Hours yesterday was oddly split: some people, mostly African and Caribbean, in smart sombre clothes, blacks and greys and monochrome discreet floral prints, and many of our white people responding to the heat wave with cutoff jeans etc.
Totally agree with not using the cross as dessert. The only thing worse than the chocolate crosses is the pre-packaged Easter baskets that are camoflauged colors with army playsets in them. The irony of this, no doubt, is totally lost on the manufacturers. [WHAT!?? I have never seen this. BARF! – PB]
A few years ago a Catholic priest friend of mine gave me a pair of chocolate hands folded in prayer as a hostess gift. They were delicious.
lol @ WBJ by the way, funny comment!
And you can “tsk tsk” that cake all you want, but I want me some of that!! Cake sounds really good right about now.
I think the cake is possibly a theological statement that at Easter God takes the horrible and makes of it something impossibly sweet.
Like charoset at the Seder? Isn’t that a reminder of enslavement that tastes oh so yummy?
Do I sense of DMin paper coming on? “The Theology of Cake” has a nice ring to it. And think of the research!
For more confectionery Easter monstrosities, are you aware of the genius that is Cake Wrecks?
http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/
For Eddie Izzard fans there’s always the great, “Cake or death?” bit.
Hmmm, I make a “church cake” every religious holiday. It is a gothic looking Bundt pan and this year for Easter I made a lemon pound cake with pastel sprinkles (for, of course, the stained glass) and a cream cheese glaze. For Christmas I usually do chocolate and put powdered sugar “snow” on top. I guess it is a little more acceptable than a cross 😉
I also make coconut cake with green coconut “grass” and candy eggs, so I’m just goofy that way. [You’re YUMMY that way! – PB]
Cross-shaped cakes were routine parts of First Holy Communion celebrations in my Roman Catholic childhood– all in white. Mine had a plaster prayerbook on it.
What you really, really *don’t* want to do is read Hugh Hefner’s tweets, in which he waxes poetic about why Easter has always been “a very special day” at “the mansion.”
http://twitter.com/#!/hughhefner
Maybe a Rocky Road cake would be the thing…
I hope you’re proud PB – I wore a navy-with-cream-polka-dots silk dress, mid grey tights and cute little grey suede ankle boots to lead the service this morning. It’s usually whatever I can find at 10 to 8 before the 8am service (usually jeans in winter or a skirt in summer) and you’re lucky if I put goo in my hair. (I’m not the minister, BTW) 🙂
@madgebaby — I make the same cake! Every year! though this year my eggs were in the “mud” (chocolate frosting) instead of “grass” because the majority of my guests do not indulge in coconut. But on second thought, I may make some and sprinkle it on the servings of those who do…
@madgebaby my mother made the same cake except that she had a lambie cake mold instead of a bundt pan. But it had the green coconut grass & jelly beans plus jelly bean eyes & necklace. She made these when I was a kid & later for her grandchildren.