April 15, 1981

Robert Farrar Capon, an Episcopal priest and food writer, is the author of ''Supper of the Lamb'' (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). By ROBERT FARRAR CAPON WHEN it comes to celebrating Easter, household cooks have long known what the church has only lately reaffirmed. The celebration cannot be confined to Sunday alone; it permeates even the somber events of the week before. Prior to the liturgical changes of recent decades, Holy Week tended to be observed as if the Resurrection hadn't yet occurred - or, indeed, as if there were doubt about whether it would happen at all. Palm Sunday was a time for elation; the Last Supper, for poignancy; the Trial, outrage; the Crucifixion, horror; and the Death, depression. Only then was the joy of the Resurrection allowed to break through.

For years, New York's City Council has often been the branch of metropolitan government least likely to be taken seriously and it has also been called a rubber stamp. Henry J. Stern, the Manhattan Liberal Councilman at Large, downgraded even that characterization .-??? .- -¸cC* c-??? -?c *.-? ???c¸: ¸??? 1965, saying, ''At least a rubber stamp leaves an impression.'' But there are changes afoot: If it is not exactly a tiger, Council President Carol Bellamy said, ''it is getting better.'' ''It is getting better,'' said Ruth W. Messinger, a Manhattan Democrat who is one of the most outspoken members of the Council's increasingly lively insurgents.

Sales of new cars by the three major American auto makers dropped 11.9 percent from a year earlier in the April 1 to April 10 selling period, mainly as a result of a poor showing by the General Motors Corporation after the end of customer rebate sales promotions. ''Clearly we're heading back to where we were before the rebates began,'' said Harvey Heinbach, auto analyst for Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. ''I don't think we're going to see much of a spark in auto sales until the second half of this year.'' The Chrysler Corporation reported a sales increase of 32.8 percent over last year, and the Ford Motor Company a 4.8 percent rise, but sales at G.M. fell 22.9 percent. There were nine selling days in the early April period both this year and last.

First came the sonic boom announcing that it was near: two loud shocks that reverberated like cannon blasts across the desert floor. Over the public address system, the voice of Mission Control read out the orbiter's speed and altitude, now rapidly declining: ''Columbia, you're right on the money, right on the money,'' ''Where is it, where is it?'' perhaps 10,000 voices asked at once from the edge of Rogers Dry Lake. Dropping to the Desert Then, the sharpest eyes on the ground, squinting upward, saw it: a tiny, moving speck high over the horizon, dropping fast through a dusty, luminescent haze that rose from the surface of the parched dry lake like a cloudy mist. Suddenly, the tension broke.

Lorna J. Sass, a culinary historian, is the author of several cookbooks. By LORNA J. SASS ''And the Lord brought us forth from Egypt with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders .... '' DURING the Passover seder each year, as her family commemorated the Exodus from Egypt, Claudia Douek Roden felt puzzled. She sat at the children's end of the seder table, a table so long that as she cast her eyes down the length of the white silk embroidered tablecloth, her grandfather at the other end seemed very far away. Although the story of the Exodus was being read from the Haggadah in Hebrew, the large family was gathered for the seder in their home in Zamalek, an island in the Nile and a suburb of Cairo. If the Lord brought Jews forth from Egypt, she wondered, ''What are we still doing here, and how can my grandfather joyfully recite the list of plagues brought upon the Egyptians, while we are living contentedly among them?''