Understanding Easter
Don Coldsmith, Syndicated Columnist
Monday, April 13, 2009
I’VE TAUGHT AN adult church-school class for a great many years. We don’t follow a lesson series, but I do try to vary it quite a bit, to coincide with current events, shifts in public attitude, anything of interest that relates to religion. So, since religion SHOULD relate to everything there is, any subject may come up. It’s pretty loose and anybody can bring up any question or comment. (Well, almost).
The upcoming Easter celebration stimulated a question a while back: How did Easter get all mixed up with rabbits and eggs and baby chicks and lambs? There’s no easy answer, of course. I’ve written about Easter before, but it’s been awhile. Easter is one of the two major occasions of all Christianity, the other being Christmas. Christmas is always celebrated on the same date by our present solar calendar. It’s a “fixed” feast day. Easter, calculated by the lunar calendar, falls on a different date each year. It was decided by the Nicene Council in 325 A.D. that Easter is to be on “The first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21.” (I guess nobody asked them why). The earliest possible date for Easter is March 22, the latest, April 25.
But back to the question: How did it get all mixed up with rabbits, eggs and all? In most parts of the world, other religions were celebrating such things as the winter solstice, the autumn equinox and the vernal equinox. To avoid the temptation to participate in others’ ceremonies that looked like they might be fun, the early Christian church scheduled their feast days at about the same time. It’s no coincidence that Christianity’s two most important festivals are pretty close to Jewish festivals, Passover and Hanukkah — not to mention a pagan ceremony to a Teutonic goddess of fertility who was highly regarded in northern Europe.
Her name was Eostra and her special day, “Eostur.” Her holiday was concerned with new life, rebirth and resurrection of plant life after a hard winter. Not all of Christianity borrowed her name for the Easter festival, however. In several languages, the word for Easter is based on the Jewish Passover, Pesah (Italian, Parqua; Spanish, Pascua; French, Paques.) This ties in with the sacrificial lamb.
Eggs? New life, of course. Important in all cultures. The old Persian creation story has Earth hatching out of a giant egg. (Who laid that?)
Rabbits? Several different possibilities. New life, of course. The old chicken-versus-egg riddle, asking which came first, is reflected in a rabbit story: Why do rabbits have more fun than anybody? Because there are more rabbits. Why, then, are there more rabbits? Because they have more fun than anybody.
Ancient Egypt saw the rabbit as a fertility symbol. Fertility, renewal — many cultures associate the rabbit with the moon. The lunar shadow is seen not as a man’s face, but as a rabbit. Maybe that’s the moon’s connection to Easter.
It’s hard to tie it all together in a rational manner or to explain it. Easter is a time of renewal, new life, death and resurrection. Do I understand it? No. Does anyone ever completely understand religion? I doubt it. I’ve talked to some people who insist that they do. But that would make them as smart as God, which I doubt.
I frequently recall a conversation with an Indian friend about some mystical features of his traditional religion. There are always things about the spiritual and mystical aspects of any relationship to God that are difficult to understand. I had made the statement to my Indian friend that “I just don’t understand what’s happening.”
He replied, almost gently. “Don, if you still think you have to understand, you’re missing the point.”
He went on to point out that we don’t really have to understand how our TV works to watch it and enjoy.
There are a lot of things in life, and especially about religion, that are probably not supposed to be understood, but experienced and enjoyed. And ultimately religion should affect all of our life experiences.
So, we go to church on Easter, hear again the story of death and resurrection and feel better for our own spiritual renewal. We don’t have to understand.
See you in church.
madpoet (anonymous) says...
That's why it's called "faith;" we don't understand everything. I doubt we're capable of understanding everything that exists much less God.
April 14, 2009 at 10:42 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
I like that reference to not understanding how a TV works yet we watch it. Will remember that. Glad you wrote about this, Doc.
April 15, 2009 at 7:57 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )