The Most Important Holiday

Last week Thailand celebrated what would probably be considered as its most important holiday: Songkran.

Technically speaking, it's a three-day holiday meant to round in the Thai New Year.  The time is spent with loved ones; people sprinkle water on one another as a sign of a blessing.

Realistically speaking, it's a week-long water fight where both Thais and tourists release a year's worth of pent-up energy and become kids (wild, often delinquent kids) again.

A little dose of Songkran can be fun.  I went out last week Monday with two Thai friends to "play water" in the heart of the Songkran action.  The heart of the Songkran action, perhaps for all of Thailand, happens to be a short walk from my door.  We brought a water gun with us, and exchange squirts with the thousands of people parading around the roads surrounding the city's moat.  Our little water gun produced just a small stream, whereas some people's weaponry included huge buckets of ice water which they threw at any individual they decided needed a good dousing.  Being a very tall, very white, foreigner, I was welcomed into the new year with a disproportionately high number of buckets of ice water poured down my head and back.  We were out in the heat of the midday sun, and the daily high temperature lately has been in the 90s and 100s.  But by the end of those two hours walking around, I was shivering cold and my hands were numb!

Unfortunately, Songkran is the most dangerous time of the year in Thailand as well.  It seems that many people neglect to use common sense in their celebrating.  Alcohol gets abused, leading to reckless driving and even people drowning in the moat.  I probably heard more ambulance sirens in those three days than in the past several months combined.  Sometimes the holiday seems a bit cruel even.  For example, riding a motorbike makes one especially vulnerable to water-throwing -- and getting startled with a bucket of water forcefully thrown at your face while driving a motorbike is neither an enjoyable nor a safe experience!

There was another three-day holiday that happened just before Songkran, but it went largely unnoticed in Thailand.  The most sacred time of the Christian Church year -- The Triduum -- pased by without even a passing glance to most Thai people busy in their Songkran preparations.

Yet we have reason to celebrate.  Eternal victory has been made ours.  It was declared in the words Jesus proclaimed to the world as he hung dying on the cross: "It is finished!"  It was proven with the linens laying in the tomb that no longer wrapped our Savior in death.  He is risen.  He is risen indeed!

That's the joy that makes each day a great day to be here in Thailand.  What an important message to share!  Move over Songkran, we've got a better reason to celebrate.  Like Songkran it involves water, but not some bucket of icy water poured down one's back with a twinge of cruelty.  No, this is the water of rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit through baptism.  And it's the eternal life-giving water Jesus offered the woman at the well in Samaria.

Please join me in praying that this spiritually thirsty country would be quenched through Jesus.

Blessings,

Eric