Why Easter is called Easter, and other little-known facts about the holiday
Brent Landau, Lecturer in Religious Studies, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts
The Conversation Mon, March 29, 2021, 9:57 AM
The date of Easter, when the resurrection of Jesus is said to have taken place, changes from year to year.
The reason for this variation is that Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox.
I am a religious studies scholar specializing in early Christianity, and my research shows that this dating of Easter goes back to the complicated origins of this holiday and how it has evolved over the centuries.
Easter is quite similar to other major holidays like Christmas and Halloween, which have evolved over the last 200 years or so. In all of these holidays, Christian and non-Christian (pagan) elements have continued to blend together.
Easter as a rite of spring:
Most major holidays have some connection to the changing of seasons. This is especially obvious in the case of Christmas. The New Testament gives no information about what time of year Jesus was born. Many scholars believe, however, that the main reason Jesus’ birth came to be celebrated on December 25 is because that was the date of the winter solstice according to the Roman calendar.
Since the days following the winter solstice gradually become longer and less dark, it was ideal symbolism for the birth of “the light of the world” as stated in the New Testament’s Gospel of John.
Similar was the case with Easter, which falls in close proximity to another key point in the solar year: the vernal equinox (around March 20), when there are equal periods of light and darkness. For those in northern latitudes, the coming of spring is often met with excitement, as it means an end to the cold days of winter.
Spring also means the coming back to life of plants and trees that have been dormant for winter, as well as the birth of new life in the animal world. Given the symbolism of new life and rebirth, it was only natural to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus at this time of the year.
The naming of the celebration as “Easter” seems to go back to the name of a pre-Christian goddess in England, Eostre, who was celebrated at beginning of spring. The only reference to this goddess comes from the writings of the Venerable Bede, a British monk who lived in the late seventh and early eighth century. As religious studies scholar Bruce Forbes summarizes:
“Bede wrote that the month in which English Christians were celebrating the resurrection of Jesus had been called Eosturmonath in Old English, referring to a goddess named Eostre. And even though Christians had begun affirming the Christian meaning of the celebration, they continued to use the name of the goddess to designate the season.”
Bede was so influential for later Christians that the name stuck, and hence Easter remains the name by which the English, Germans and Americans refer to the festival of Jesus’ resurrection.
The connection with Jewish Passover:
It is important to point out that while the name “Easter” is used in the English-speaking world, many more cultures refer to it by terms best translated as “Passover” (for instance, “Pascha” in Greek) – a reference, indeed, to the Jewish festival of Passover.
In the Hebrew Bible, Passover is a festival that commemorates the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, as narrated in the Book of Exodus. It was and continues to be the most important Jewish seasonal festival, celebrated on the first full moon after the vernal equinox.
At the time of Jesus, Passover had special significance, as the Jewish people were again under the dominance of foreign powers (namely, the Romans). Jewish pilgrims streamed into Jerusalem every year in the hope that God’s chosen people (as they believed themselves to be) would soon be liberated once more.
On one Passover, Jesus traveled to Jerusalem with his disciples to celebrate the festival. He entered Jerusalem in a triumphal procession and created a disturbance in the Jerusalem Temple. It seems that both of these actions attracted the attention of the Romans, and that as a result Jesus was executed around the year A.D. 30.
Some of Jesus’ followers, however, believed that they saw him alive after his death, experiences that gave birth to the Christian religion. As Jesus died during the Passover festival and his followers believed he was resurrected from the dead three days later, it was logical to commemorate these events in close proximity.
Some early Christians chose to celebrate the resurrection of Christ on the same date as the Jewish Passover, which fell around day 14 of the month of Nisan, in March or April. These Christians were known as Quartodecimans (the name means “Fourteeners”).
By choosing this date, they put the focus on when Jesus died and also emphasized continuity with the Judaism out of which Christianity emerged. Some others instead preferred to hold the festival on a Sunday, since that was when Jesus’ tomb was believed to have been found.
In A.D. 325, the Emperor Constantine, who favored Christianity, convened a meeting of Christian leaders to resolve important disputes at the Council of Nicaea. The most fateful of its decisions was about the status of Christ, whom the council recognized as “fully human and fully divine.” This council also resolved that Easter should be fixed on a Sunday, not on day 14 of Nisan. As a result, Easter is now celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon of the vernal equinox.
The Easter bunny and Easter eggs:
In early America, the Easter festival was far more popular among Catholics than Protestants. For instance, the New England Puritans regarded both Easter and Christmas as too tainted by non-Christian influences to be appropriate to celebrate. Such festivals also tended to be opportunities for heavy drinking and merrymaking.
The fortunes of both holidays changed in the 19th century, when they became occasions to be spent with one’s family. This was done partly out of a desire to make the celebration of these holidays less rowdy.
But Easter and Christmas also became reshaped as domestic holidays because understandings of children were changing. Prior to the 17th century, children were rarely the center of attention. As historian Stephen Nissenbaum writes,
“…children were lumped together with other members of the lower orders in general, especially servants and apprentices – who, not coincidentally, were generally young people themselves.”
From the 17th century onward, there was an increasing recognition of childhood as as time of life that should be joyous, not simply as preparatory for adulthood. This “discovery of childhood” and the doting upon children had profound effects on how Easter was celebrated.
It is at this point in the holiday’s development that Easter eggs and the Easter bunny become especially important. Decorated eggs had been part of the Easter festival at least since medieval times, given the obvious symbolism of new life. A vast amount of folklore surrounds Easter eggs, and in a number of Eastern European countries, the process of decorating them is extremely elaborate. Several Eastern European legends describe eggs turning red (a favorite color for Easter eggs) in connection with the events surrounding Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Yet it was only in the 17th century that a German tradition of an “Easter hare” bringing eggs to good children came to be known. Hares and rabbits had a long association with spring seasonal rituals because of their amazing powers of fertility.
When German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania in the 18th and 19th centuries, they brought this tradition with them. The wild hare also became supplanted by the more docile and domestic rabbit, in another indication of how the focus moved toward children.
As Christians celebrate the festival this spring in commemoration of Jesus’ resurrection, the familiar sights of the Easter bunny and Easter eggs serve as a reminder of the holiday’s very ancient origins outside of the Christian tradition.
This is an updated version of a piece published on March 21, 2018.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/wh ... 52774.html
EASTER
The Unsettling Power of Easter
The holiday is about much more than a celebration of spring.
I grew up in the Southern Black church tradition, where Easter was the opportunity to don your best outfit. The yellow and red dresses and dark suits set against the Black and brown bodies of my church were a thing to behold. The hats of grandmothers and deacon’s wives jostled with one another for attention. The choir had its best music rehearsed and ready to go. Getting to sing the solo on Easter was like getting a prime spot at the Apollo.
I watched rather than participated in these festivities during most of my youth. I didn’t have the money or social standing to attract much attention. Then one year my mother cobbled together enough money to purchase a navy blue three-piece suit and a clip-on tie. Without my father around, neither she nor I could tie the real thing. I thought I had joined the elect when I showed up fresh and clean for Sunday service.
The feeling didn’t last long. During a song, a woman sitting next to me with one of the aforementioned hats got excited. Our tradition called it “catching the Holy Ghost.” In her ecstatic state, she kicked out, hit me in the leg, and ripped a hole in my brand-new pants.
That Sunday introduced me to the two Easters that struggle alongside each other. One is linked closely to the celebration of spring and the possibility of new beginnings. It is the show that can be church on Easter. The other deals with the disturbing prospect that God is present with us. His power breaks out and unsettles the world.
The four Gospels describe Jesus’ female followers going to his tomb on Easter morning, only to find it empty. They receive the news that Christ has risen from the dead. Each Gospel, at different points, comments on the fear that these women felt.
The Gospel of Mark’s account is especially striking to me. The earliest and most reliable manuscripts of Mark conclude with a description of the women as “trembling and bewildered.” Mark tells us that they “fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid” (Mark 16:8). That the story is known at all makes it clear that Mark believes the women eventually told Jesus’ disciples what they had seen. But what do we make of the fact that Mark ends his Gospel on the women’s fear and silence?
Mark’s ending points to a truth that often gets lost in the celebration: Easter is a frightening prospect. For the women, the only thing more terrifying than a world with Jesus dead was one in which he was alive.
We know what to do with grief and despair. We have a place for it. We have rituals that surround it. I know how to look around at the anti-Black racism, the anti-Asian racism, the struggles of families at the border and feel despair. I know what it’s like to watch the body count rise after a mass shooting, only to have the country collectively shrug because we are too addicted to our guns and our violence.
I know how to feel when I look to some in the church for help, only to have my faith questioned because I see in biblical texts a version of social justice that I find compelling. I put it all in the tomb that contains my dead hopes and dreams for what the church and country could be. I am left with only tears.
Hope is much harder to come by. The women did not go to the tomb looking for hope. They were searching for a place to grieve. They wanted to be left alone in despair. The terrifying prospect of Easter is that God called these women to return to the same world that crucified Jesus with a very dangerous gift: hope in the power of God, the unending reservoir of forgiveness and an abundance of love. It would make them seem like fools. Who could believe such a thing?
Christians, at their best, are the fools who dare believe in God’s power to call dead things to life. That is the testimony of the Black church. It is not that we have good music (we do) or excellent preaching (we do). The testimony of the Black church is that in times of deep crisis we somehow become more than our collective ability. We become a source of hope that did not originate in ourselves.
After we take off those suits and sundresses and hats, we return to a world that is racialized. The Black skin that set nicely against those yellows and blues also makes us stand out as we live in a world that calls our skin a danger. We need more than celebration; we need unsettling presence.
To listen to the plans of some, after the pandemic we are returning to a world of parties and rejoicing. This is true. Parties have their place. Let us not close all paths to happiness. But we are also returning to a world of hatred, cruelty, division and a thirst for power that was never quarantined. This period under pressure has freshly thrown into relief the fissures in the American experiment.
As we leave the tombs of quarantine, a return to normal would be a disaster unless we recognize that we are going back to a world desperately in need of healing. For me, the source of that healing is an empty tomb in Jerusalem. The work that Jesus left his followers to do includes showing compassion and forgiveness and contending for a just society. It involves the ever-present offer for all to begin again. The weight of this work fills me with a terrifying fear, especially in light of all those who have done great evil in his name. Who is worthy of such a task? Like the women, the scope of it leaves me too often with a stunned silence.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/opin ... 778d3e6de3
The holiday is about much more than a celebration of spring.
I grew up in the Southern Black church tradition, where Easter was the opportunity to don your best outfit. The yellow and red dresses and dark suits set against the Black and brown bodies of my church were a thing to behold. The hats of grandmothers and deacon’s wives jostled with one another for attention. The choir had its best music rehearsed and ready to go. Getting to sing the solo on Easter was like getting a prime spot at the Apollo.
I watched rather than participated in these festivities during most of my youth. I didn’t have the money or social standing to attract much attention. Then one year my mother cobbled together enough money to purchase a navy blue three-piece suit and a clip-on tie. Without my father around, neither she nor I could tie the real thing. I thought I had joined the elect when I showed up fresh and clean for Sunday service.
The feeling didn’t last long. During a song, a woman sitting next to me with one of the aforementioned hats got excited. Our tradition called it “catching the Holy Ghost.” In her ecstatic state, she kicked out, hit me in the leg, and ripped a hole in my brand-new pants.
That Sunday introduced me to the two Easters that struggle alongside each other. One is linked closely to the celebration of spring and the possibility of new beginnings. It is the show that can be church on Easter. The other deals with the disturbing prospect that God is present with us. His power breaks out and unsettles the world.
The four Gospels describe Jesus’ female followers going to his tomb on Easter morning, only to find it empty. They receive the news that Christ has risen from the dead. Each Gospel, at different points, comments on the fear that these women felt.
The Gospel of Mark’s account is especially striking to me. The earliest and most reliable manuscripts of Mark conclude with a description of the women as “trembling and bewildered.” Mark tells us that they “fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid” (Mark 16:8). That the story is known at all makes it clear that Mark believes the women eventually told Jesus’ disciples what they had seen. But what do we make of the fact that Mark ends his Gospel on the women’s fear and silence?
Mark’s ending points to a truth that often gets lost in the celebration: Easter is a frightening prospect. For the women, the only thing more terrifying than a world with Jesus dead was one in which he was alive.
We know what to do with grief and despair. We have a place for it. We have rituals that surround it. I know how to look around at the anti-Black racism, the anti-Asian racism, the struggles of families at the border and feel despair. I know what it’s like to watch the body count rise after a mass shooting, only to have the country collectively shrug because we are too addicted to our guns and our violence.
I know how to feel when I look to some in the church for help, only to have my faith questioned because I see in biblical texts a version of social justice that I find compelling. I put it all in the tomb that contains my dead hopes and dreams for what the church and country could be. I am left with only tears.
Hope is much harder to come by. The women did not go to the tomb looking for hope. They were searching for a place to grieve. They wanted to be left alone in despair. The terrifying prospect of Easter is that God called these women to return to the same world that crucified Jesus with a very dangerous gift: hope in the power of God, the unending reservoir of forgiveness and an abundance of love. It would make them seem like fools. Who could believe such a thing?
Christians, at their best, are the fools who dare believe in God’s power to call dead things to life. That is the testimony of the Black church. It is not that we have good music (we do) or excellent preaching (we do). The testimony of the Black church is that in times of deep crisis we somehow become more than our collective ability. We become a source of hope that did not originate in ourselves.
After we take off those suits and sundresses and hats, we return to a world that is racialized. The Black skin that set nicely against those yellows and blues also makes us stand out as we live in a world that calls our skin a danger. We need more than celebration; we need unsettling presence.
To listen to the plans of some, after the pandemic we are returning to a world of parties and rejoicing. This is true. Parties have their place. Let us not close all paths to happiness. But we are also returning to a world of hatred, cruelty, division and a thirst for power that was never quarantined. This period under pressure has freshly thrown into relief the fissures in the American experiment.
As we leave the tombs of quarantine, a return to normal would be a disaster unless we recognize that we are going back to a world desperately in need of healing. For me, the source of that healing is an empty tomb in Jerusalem. The work that Jesus left his followers to do includes showing compassion and forgiveness and contending for a just society. It involves the ever-present offer for all to begin again. The weight of this work fills me with a terrifying fear, especially in light of all those who have done great evil in his name. Who is worthy of such a task? Like the women, the scope of it leaves me too often with a stunned silence.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/opin ... 778d3e6de3
WRITTEN BY
Hans J. Hillerbrand
Professor Emeritus of History and Religion, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Author of The Division of Christendom: Christianity in the Sixteenth Century and Men and Ideas in the Sixteenth...
Last Updated: Mar 31, 2021
Easter, Latin Pascha, Greek Pascha, principal festival of the Christian church, which celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his Crucifixion. The earliest recorded observance of an Easter celebration comes from the 2nd century, though the commemoration of Jesus’ Resurrection probably occurred earlier. Easter is celebrated on Sunday, April 4, 2021.
The English word Easter, which parallels the German word Ostern, is of uncertain origin. One view, expounded by the Venerable Bede in the 8th century, was that it derived from Eostre, or Eostrae, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring and fertility. This view presumes—as does the view associating the origin of Christmas on December 25 with pagan celebrations of the winter solstice—that Christians appropriated pagan names and holidays for their highest festivals. Given the determination with which Christians combated all forms of paganism (the belief in multiple deities), this appears a rather dubious presumption. There is now widespread consensus that the word derives from the Christian designation of Easter week as in albis, a Latin phrase that was understood as the plural of alba (“dawn”) and became eostarum in Old High German, the precursor of the modern German and English term. The Latin and Greek Pascha (“Passover”) provides the root for Pâques, the French word for Easter.
The Date Of Easter And Its Controversies
Fixing the date on which the Resurrection of Jesus was to be observed and celebrated triggered a major controversy in early Christianity in which an Eastern and a Western position can be distinguished. The dispute, known as the Paschal controversies, was not definitively resolved until the 8th century. In Asia Minor, Christians observed the day of the Crucifixion on the same day that Jews celebrated the Passover offering—that is, on the 14th day of the first full moon of spring, 14 Nisan (see Jewish calendar). The Resurrection, then, was observed two days later, on 16 Nisan, regardless of the day of the week. In the West the Resurrection of Jesus was celebrated on the first day of the week, Sunday, when Jesus had risen from the dead. Consequently, Easter was always celebrated on the first Sunday after the 14th day of the month of Nisan. Increasingly, the churches opted for the Sunday celebration, and the Quartodecimans (“14th day” proponents) remained a minority. The Council of Nicaea in 325 decreed that Easter should be observed on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox (March 21). Easter, therefore, can fall on any Sunday between March 22 and April 25.
Eastern Orthodox churches use a slightly different calculation based on the Julian rather than the Gregorian calendar (which is 13 days ahead of the former), with the result that the Orthodox Easter celebration usually occurs later than that celebrated by Protestants and Roman Catholics. Moreover, the Orthodox tradition prohibits Easter from being celebrated before or at the same time as Passover.
In the 20th century several attempts were made to arrive at a fixed date for Easter, with the Sunday following the second Saturday in April specifically proposed. While this proposal and others had many supporters, none came to fruition. Renewed interest in a fixed date arose in the early 21st century, resulting from discussions involving the leaders of Eastern Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Coptic, Anglican, and Roman Catholic churches, but formal agreement on such a date remained elusive.
Liturgical Observances
In the Christian calendar, Easter follows Lent, the period of 40 days (not counting Sundays) before Easter, which traditionally is observed by acts of penance and fasting. Easter is immediately preceded by Holy Week, which includes Maundy Thursday, the commemoration of Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples; Good Friday, the day of his Crucifixion; and Holy Saturday, the transition between Crucifixion and Resurrection. Liturgically, Easter comes after the Great Vigil, which was originally observed sometime between sunset on Easter Saturday and sunrise on Easter Sunday. Later it would be celebrated in Western churches on Saturday evening, then on Saturday afternoon, and finally on Sunday morning. In 1955 the Roman Catholic Church set the time for the vigil at 10 PM, which allowed for the Easter mass to be celebrated after midnight. In the Orthodox traditions the vigil continues to be an important liturgical event, while in Protestant churches it is little known.
By the 4th century the Easter vigil was well established in various liturgical expressions. It was characterized by a spirit of joyful anticipation of the Resurrection and—because of the belief that Jesus’ Second Coming would occur on Easter—the return of Jesus. In the Roman Catholic tradition the vigil has four parts: the celebration of lights focused on the Paschal candle; the service of lessons called the prophecies; the administration of the sacraments of baptism and confirmation to adult converts; and the Easter mass. The use of the Paschal candle, to denote the appearance of light out of darkness through the Resurrection, was first recorded in the year 384; by the 10th century it had gained general usage. The prominence of baptism at Easter goes back to early Christianity, probably the 4th century, when baptism was administered only once a year, at Easter. In the Roman Catholic service the priest blesses the water to be used in the forthcoming year for baptism, with the faithful taking some of that water with them to receive protection from vicissitudes. Lutheran and Anglican churches use variations of this vigil service.
All Christian traditions have their own special liturgical emphases for Easter. The Easter sunrise service, for example, is a distinctive Protestant observance in North America. The practice may derive from the Gospel narrative of Jesus’ Resurrection, which states that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb “while it was still dark” (John 20:1) or as dawn was breaking (Matthew 28:1 and Luke 24:1). It is a service of jubilation that takes place as the sun rises to dispel the darkness.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Easter-holiday
Hans J. Hillerbrand
Professor Emeritus of History and Religion, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Author of The Division of Christendom: Christianity in the Sixteenth Century and Men and Ideas in the Sixteenth...
Last Updated: Mar 31, 2021
Easter, Latin Pascha, Greek Pascha, principal festival of the Christian church, which celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his Crucifixion. The earliest recorded observance of an Easter celebration comes from the 2nd century, though the commemoration of Jesus’ Resurrection probably occurred earlier. Easter is celebrated on Sunday, April 4, 2021.
The English word Easter, which parallels the German word Ostern, is of uncertain origin. One view, expounded by the Venerable Bede in the 8th century, was that it derived from Eostre, or Eostrae, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring and fertility. This view presumes—as does the view associating the origin of Christmas on December 25 with pagan celebrations of the winter solstice—that Christians appropriated pagan names and holidays for their highest festivals. Given the determination with which Christians combated all forms of paganism (the belief in multiple deities), this appears a rather dubious presumption. There is now widespread consensus that the word derives from the Christian designation of Easter week as in albis, a Latin phrase that was understood as the plural of alba (“dawn”) and became eostarum in Old High German, the precursor of the modern German and English term. The Latin and Greek Pascha (“Passover”) provides the root for Pâques, the French word for Easter.
The Date Of Easter And Its Controversies
Fixing the date on which the Resurrection of Jesus was to be observed and celebrated triggered a major controversy in early Christianity in which an Eastern and a Western position can be distinguished. The dispute, known as the Paschal controversies, was not definitively resolved until the 8th century. In Asia Minor, Christians observed the day of the Crucifixion on the same day that Jews celebrated the Passover offering—that is, on the 14th day of the first full moon of spring, 14 Nisan (see Jewish calendar). The Resurrection, then, was observed two days later, on 16 Nisan, regardless of the day of the week. In the West the Resurrection of Jesus was celebrated on the first day of the week, Sunday, when Jesus had risen from the dead. Consequently, Easter was always celebrated on the first Sunday after the 14th day of the month of Nisan. Increasingly, the churches opted for the Sunday celebration, and the Quartodecimans (“14th day” proponents) remained a minority. The Council of Nicaea in 325 decreed that Easter should be observed on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox (March 21). Easter, therefore, can fall on any Sunday between March 22 and April 25.
Eastern Orthodox churches use a slightly different calculation based on the Julian rather than the Gregorian calendar (which is 13 days ahead of the former), with the result that the Orthodox Easter celebration usually occurs later than that celebrated by Protestants and Roman Catholics. Moreover, the Orthodox tradition prohibits Easter from being celebrated before or at the same time as Passover.
In the 20th century several attempts were made to arrive at a fixed date for Easter, with the Sunday following the second Saturday in April specifically proposed. While this proposal and others had many supporters, none came to fruition. Renewed interest in a fixed date arose in the early 21st century, resulting from discussions involving the leaders of Eastern Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Coptic, Anglican, and Roman Catholic churches, but formal agreement on such a date remained elusive.
Liturgical Observances
In the Christian calendar, Easter follows Lent, the period of 40 days (not counting Sundays) before Easter, which traditionally is observed by acts of penance and fasting. Easter is immediately preceded by Holy Week, which includes Maundy Thursday, the commemoration of Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples; Good Friday, the day of his Crucifixion; and Holy Saturday, the transition between Crucifixion and Resurrection. Liturgically, Easter comes after the Great Vigil, which was originally observed sometime between sunset on Easter Saturday and sunrise on Easter Sunday. Later it would be celebrated in Western churches on Saturday evening, then on Saturday afternoon, and finally on Sunday morning. In 1955 the Roman Catholic Church set the time for the vigil at 10 PM, which allowed for the Easter mass to be celebrated after midnight. In the Orthodox traditions the vigil continues to be an important liturgical event, while in Protestant churches it is little known.
By the 4th century the Easter vigil was well established in various liturgical expressions. It was characterized by a spirit of joyful anticipation of the Resurrection and—because of the belief that Jesus’ Second Coming would occur on Easter—the return of Jesus. In the Roman Catholic tradition the vigil has four parts: the celebration of lights focused on the Paschal candle; the service of lessons called the prophecies; the administration of the sacraments of baptism and confirmation to adult converts; and the Easter mass. The use of the Paschal candle, to denote the appearance of light out of darkness through the Resurrection, was first recorded in the year 384; by the 10th century it had gained general usage. The prominence of baptism at Easter goes back to early Christianity, probably the 4th century, when baptism was administered only once a year, at Easter. In the Roman Catholic service the priest blesses the water to be used in the forthcoming year for baptism, with the faithful taking some of that water with them to receive protection from vicissitudes. Lutheran and Anglican churches use variations of this vigil service.
All Christian traditions have their own special liturgical emphases for Easter. The Easter sunrise service, for example, is a distinctive Protestant observance in North America. The practice may derive from the Gospel narrative of Jesus’ Resurrection, which states that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb “while it was still dark” (John 20:1) or as dawn was breaking (Matthew 28:1 and Luke 24:1). It is a service of jubilation that takes place as the sun rises to dispel the darkness.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Easter-holiday
Pope, in Easter message, slams weapons spending in time of pandemic
Philip Pullella
Reuters Sun, April 4, 2021, 5:39 AM
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis urged countries in his Easter message on Sunday to quicken distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, particularly to the world's poor, and called armed conflict and military spending during a pandemic "scandalous".
Coronavirus has meant this has been the second year in a row that Easter papal services have been attended by small gatherings at a secondary altar of St. Peter's Basilica, instead of by crowds in the church or in the square outside.
After saying Mass, Francis read his "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message, in which he traditionally reviews world problems and appeals for peace.
"The pandemic is still spreading, while the social and economic crisis remains severe, especially for the poor. Nonetheless – and this is scandalous – armed conflicts have not ended and military arsenals are being strengthened," he said.
Francis, who would normally have given the address to up to 100,000 people in St. Peter's Square, spoke to fewer than 200 in the church while the message was broadcast to tens of millions around the world.
The square was empty except for a few police officers enforcing a strict three-day national lockdown.
The pope asked God to comfort the sick, those who have lost a loved one, and the unemployed, urging authorities to give families in greatest need a "decent sustenance".
He praised medical workers, sympathised with young people unable to attend school, and said everyone was called to combat the pandemic.
"I urge the entire international community, in a spirit of global responsibility, to commit to overcoming delays in the distribution of vaccines and to facilitate their distribution, especially in the poorest countries," he said.
Francis, who has often called for disarmament and a total ban on the possession of nuclear weapons, said: "There are still too many wars and too much violence in the world! May the Lord, who is our peace, help us to overcome the mindset of war."
'INSTRUMENTS OF DEATH'
Noting that it was International Awareness Day against anti-personnel landmines, he called such weapons "insidious and horrible devices ... how much better our world would be without these instruments of death!"
In mentioning conflict areas, he singled out for praise "the young people of Myanmar committed to supporting democracy and making their voices heard peacefully". More than 550 protesters have been killed since a Feb. 1 military coup in Myanmar, which the pope visited in 2017.
Francis called for peace in several conflict areas in Africa, including the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia and the Cabo Delgado province of Mozambique. He said the crisis in Yemen has been "met with a deafening and scandalous silence".
He appealed to Israelis and Palestinians to "rediscover the power of dialogue" to reach a two-state solution where both can live side by side in peace and prosperity.
Francis said he realised many Christians were still persecuted and called for all restrictions on freedom of worship and religion worldwide to be lifted.
(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Frances Kerry)
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/po ... 11550.html
Philip Pullella
Reuters Sun, April 4, 2021, 5:39 AM
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis urged countries in his Easter message on Sunday to quicken distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, particularly to the world's poor, and called armed conflict and military spending during a pandemic "scandalous".
Coronavirus has meant this has been the second year in a row that Easter papal services have been attended by small gatherings at a secondary altar of St. Peter's Basilica, instead of by crowds in the church or in the square outside.
After saying Mass, Francis read his "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message, in which he traditionally reviews world problems and appeals for peace.
"The pandemic is still spreading, while the social and economic crisis remains severe, especially for the poor. Nonetheless – and this is scandalous – armed conflicts have not ended and military arsenals are being strengthened," he said.
Francis, who would normally have given the address to up to 100,000 people in St. Peter's Square, spoke to fewer than 200 in the church while the message was broadcast to tens of millions around the world.
The square was empty except for a few police officers enforcing a strict three-day national lockdown.
The pope asked God to comfort the sick, those who have lost a loved one, and the unemployed, urging authorities to give families in greatest need a "decent sustenance".
He praised medical workers, sympathised with young people unable to attend school, and said everyone was called to combat the pandemic.
"I urge the entire international community, in a spirit of global responsibility, to commit to overcoming delays in the distribution of vaccines and to facilitate their distribution, especially in the poorest countries," he said.
Francis, who has often called for disarmament and a total ban on the possession of nuclear weapons, said: "There are still too many wars and too much violence in the world! May the Lord, who is our peace, help us to overcome the mindset of war."
'INSTRUMENTS OF DEATH'
Noting that it was International Awareness Day against anti-personnel landmines, he called such weapons "insidious and horrible devices ... how much better our world would be without these instruments of death!"
In mentioning conflict areas, he singled out for praise "the young people of Myanmar committed to supporting democracy and making their voices heard peacefully". More than 550 protesters have been killed since a Feb. 1 military coup in Myanmar, which the pope visited in 2017.
Francis called for peace in several conflict areas in Africa, including the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia and the Cabo Delgado province of Mozambique. He said the crisis in Yemen has been "met with a deafening and scandalous silence".
He appealed to Israelis and Palestinians to "rediscover the power of dialogue" to reach a two-state solution where both can live side by side in peace and prosperity.
Francis said he realised many Christians were still persecuted and called for all restrictions on freedom of worship and religion worldwide to be lifted.
(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Frances Kerry)
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/po ... 11550.html
This is what happens when you celebrate godlessness on Good Friday
Paul Thornton
Los Angeles Times Opinion Sat, April 10, 2021, 5:00 AM
Last Friday — Good Friday, that is, inarguably the most solemn annual occasion for Christians — The Times published an op-ed article by sociologist and secular studies professor Phil Zuckerman celebrating the growing godlessness of Americans. Then, on Sunday — Easter Sunday, the day Christians exult at the messianic resurrection that underpins their faith — The Times published an op-ed article by religious studies professor Bart D. Ehrman asserting that Jesus himself did not believe in the existence of an immortal soul.
You can imagine how that went over with some of our readers.
Neither of the pieces were confrontational in the tradition of well-known atheist polemicists such as the late Christopher Hitchens; rather, Zuckerman mostly recited facts that put nonbelievers in a positive light, and Ehrman straightforwardly summarized one side of the long-running debate among theologians on whether Christian beliefs about death and the soul more reflect divine Scripture or "The Divine Comedy."
Though many readers took issue with the substance of these pieces, what seemed to animate the most pointed complaints was the timing. America may be growing less religious, but judging by some of these reactions, it seems many members of the country's largest faith group expect some deference.
——————————————————
To the editor: How sad, that on Good Friday, one of the holiest days for all Christians, Zuckerman's article extolls the benefits of secularization.
When life is good, some don't need to turn to a higher power. The opposite is true when we lose control of events. I know — I was a refugee child in World War II.
I ask Zuckerman to gather statistics on how many sick and dying from COVID-19 called on God as their only help and salvation.
Birute Prasauskas, Lomita
..
To the editor: From a historical-critical perspective, Ehrman's discussion of body and soul and life after death among early Christians is accurate. But I have to wonder: Why publish Ehrman's piece on Easter Sunday?
In his very first paragraph he takes on, and implicitly criticizes, long-held Christian beliefs. To what end?
Probably 99% of his readers do not have training in, or even awareness of, the historical-critical tradition. Ehrman's piece, on Easter, undoubtedly upset many, and gave those on the Christian right reason to attack scholarly biblical study.
In my Scripture courses, I make every effort to show how the historical-critical method actually helps us to better understand Scripture, from both academic and faith perspectives.
Tim Vivian, Bakersfield
The writer is a professor emeritus of religious studies at Cal State Bakersfield.
..
To the editor: How tone-deaf of The Times to publish one article on godlessness and another on no life after death during the season of Passover and Easter. Who makes these enlightened editorial decisions?
Maria Elena de las Carreras, Northridge
..
To the editor: If Ehrman had said that "some " Christians believe when a person dies, their soul goes eternally to heaven or hell, I would have had a more open mind reading his article.
Christians are simply not all of one stripe. I'm very sure that some people do believe the resurrection story precisely as told in the King James Bible.
By the same token, there are a great many folks who try to follow the life and words of the itinerant rabbi from Nazareth and perhaps consider themselves Christians, but believe that the resurrection story is myth. It seems to me the power of the story is in the glorification of the words Jesus preached.
Give your fellow human a drink of water, a loaf of bread, shelter some loving kindness.
Russell Jacobs, Hemet
..
To the editor: As avowed religious people, we reject very little of what Zuckerman writes about the possible advantages of an increasingly secular society.
However, we wish to say that the church to which we belong, Westwood United Methodist, adheres quite clearly to all of the ideas he mentions, including reproductive rights, universal healthcare and structural cures for society's problems. Our religious stance calls us to support each of these.
Secularization is itself an ideology, and like all ideologies needs some sort of underlying moral principle to motivate its good actions. We religious types call on God for that motivation; those who are secularists must name their principle, lest they imagine that jettisoning God will inevitably lead to a better society.
In truth, it may, but then again it clearly may not, as the history of overt secularization sometimes demonstrates all too well.
The Rev. John C. Holbert and The Rev. Diana B. Holbert, Los Angeles
..
To the editor: I saw with disbelief that The Times published an op-ed article on Easter all but claiming that the entire celebration is a sham.
It is consistent with the fall of education in our society that a professor of religious studies would profane the lives of millions of martyrs who died to bring the message of the gospel to the world. It is a serious error in judgment by The Times.
If you are going to publish such heretical writings on Easter, then you should have the intellectual strength to provide the counterweight from a quality voice in Christendom to share the triumph of the resurrection.
Scott Larcomb, Simi Valley
..
To the editor: All I can say about Zuckerman's piece on why America's growing godlessness is a good thing is, "Amen!"
Clarence Treat, Glendale
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/op ... 26496.html
Paul Thornton
Los Angeles Times Opinion Sat, April 10, 2021, 5:00 AM
Last Friday — Good Friday, that is, inarguably the most solemn annual occasion for Christians — The Times published an op-ed article by sociologist and secular studies professor Phil Zuckerman celebrating the growing godlessness of Americans. Then, on Sunday — Easter Sunday, the day Christians exult at the messianic resurrection that underpins their faith — The Times published an op-ed article by religious studies professor Bart D. Ehrman asserting that Jesus himself did not believe in the existence of an immortal soul.
You can imagine how that went over with some of our readers.
Neither of the pieces were confrontational in the tradition of well-known atheist polemicists such as the late Christopher Hitchens; rather, Zuckerman mostly recited facts that put nonbelievers in a positive light, and Ehrman straightforwardly summarized one side of the long-running debate among theologians on whether Christian beliefs about death and the soul more reflect divine Scripture or "The Divine Comedy."
Though many readers took issue with the substance of these pieces, what seemed to animate the most pointed complaints was the timing. America may be growing less religious, but judging by some of these reactions, it seems many members of the country's largest faith group expect some deference.
——————————————————
To the editor: How sad, that on Good Friday, one of the holiest days for all Christians, Zuckerman's article extolls the benefits of secularization.
When life is good, some don't need to turn to a higher power. The opposite is true when we lose control of events. I know — I was a refugee child in World War II.
I ask Zuckerman to gather statistics on how many sick and dying from COVID-19 called on God as their only help and salvation.
Birute Prasauskas, Lomita
..
To the editor: From a historical-critical perspective, Ehrman's discussion of body and soul and life after death among early Christians is accurate. But I have to wonder: Why publish Ehrman's piece on Easter Sunday?
In his very first paragraph he takes on, and implicitly criticizes, long-held Christian beliefs. To what end?
Probably 99% of his readers do not have training in, or even awareness of, the historical-critical tradition. Ehrman's piece, on Easter, undoubtedly upset many, and gave those on the Christian right reason to attack scholarly biblical study.
In my Scripture courses, I make every effort to show how the historical-critical method actually helps us to better understand Scripture, from both academic and faith perspectives.
Tim Vivian, Bakersfield
The writer is a professor emeritus of religious studies at Cal State Bakersfield.
..
To the editor: How tone-deaf of The Times to publish one article on godlessness and another on no life after death during the season of Passover and Easter. Who makes these enlightened editorial decisions?
Maria Elena de las Carreras, Northridge
..
To the editor: If Ehrman had said that "some " Christians believe when a person dies, their soul goes eternally to heaven or hell, I would have had a more open mind reading his article.
Christians are simply not all of one stripe. I'm very sure that some people do believe the resurrection story precisely as told in the King James Bible.
By the same token, there are a great many folks who try to follow the life and words of the itinerant rabbi from Nazareth and perhaps consider themselves Christians, but believe that the resurrection story is myth. It seems to me the power of the story is in the glorification of the words Jesus preached.
Give your fellow human a drink of water, a loaf of bread, shelter some loving kindness.
Russell Jacobs, Hemet
..
To the editor: As avowed religious people, we reject very little of what Zuckerman writes about the possible advantages of an increasingly secular society.
However, we wish to say that the church to which we belong, Westwood United Methodist, adheres quite clearly to all of the ideas he mentions, including reproductive rights, universal healthcare and structural cures for society's problems. Our religious stance calls us to support each of these.
Secularization is itself an ideology, and like all ideologies needs some sort of underlying moral principle to motivate its good actions. We religious types call on God for that motivation; those who are secularists must name their principle, lest they imagine that jettisoning God will inevitably lead to a better society.
In truth, it may, but then again it clearly may not, as the history of overt secularization sometimes demonstrates all too well.
The Rev. John C. Holbert and The Rev. Diana B. Holbert, Los Angeles
..
To the editor: I saw with disbelief that The Times published an op-ed article on Easter all but claiming that the entire celebration is a sham.
It is consistent with the fall of education in our society that a professor of religious studies would profane the lives of millions of martyrs who died to bring the message of the gospel to the world. It is a serious error in judgment by The Times.
If you are going to publish such heretical writings on Easter, then you should have the intellectual strength to provide the counterweight from a quality voice in Christendom to share the triumph of the resurrection.
Scott Larcomb, Simi Valley
..
To the editor: All I can say about Zuckerman's piece on why America's growing godlessness is a good thing is, "Amen!"
Clarence Treat, Glendale
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/op ... 26496.html
Christians hold many views on Jesus’ resurrection – a theologian explains the differing views among Baptists
Resurrection of Christ depicted in 14th-century fresco in Chora Church, Istanbul, Turkey. LP7/Collections E+ via Getty Images
Every year, Christians from around the world gather for worship on Easter Sunday. Also known as Pascha or Resurrection Sunday, Easter is the final day of a weeklong commemoration of the story of Jesus’ final days in the city of Jerusalem leading up to his crucifixion and resurrection.
Most Christians refer to the week before Easter as Holy Week. In Western Christianity, Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, which commemorates Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Easter is the third day of the larger three-day festival known as Holy Triduum, which begins on the evening of Maundy Thursday, marking the night of Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples. Good Friday marks Jesus’ suffering, crucifixion and death. Holy Saturday marks Jesus’ burial in a tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea. The festival reaches its climax on early Sunday morning with the Easter Vigil and ends on the evening of Easter Sunday.
As a Baptist minister and theologian myself, I believe it is important to understand how Christians more generally, and Baptists in particular, hold differing views on the meaning of the resurrection.
The resurrection
According to the Christian faith, resurrection is the pivotal event when “God raised Jesus from the dead” after he was crucified by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.
While none of the four canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John describe the actual event of the resurrection in detail, they nonetheless give varying reports about the empty tomb and Christ’s post-resurrection appearances among his followers both in Galilee and Jerusalem.
They also report that it was women who discovered the empty tomb and received and proclaimed the first message that Christ was risen from the dead. These narratives were passed down orally among the earliest Christian communities and then codified in the Gospel writings beginning some 30 years after Jesus’ death.
The Earliest Christians believed that by raising Jesus of Nazareth from the dead, God cleared Jesus from any wrongdoing for which he was tried and unjustly condemned to death by Pilate.
By affirming the resurrection, Christians do not mean that Jesus’ body was merely resuscitated. Rather, as New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson writes, resurrection means that “[Jesus] entered into an entirely new form of existence.”
As the risen Christ, Jesus is believed to share God’s power to transform all life and also to share this same power with his followers. So the resurrection is believed to be something that happened not only to Jesus, but also an experience that happens to his followers.
Christ standing before Roman governor Pontius Pilate, in a tile from the Cathedral of Siena, Italy.
Christ before Pilate: Detail of a tile from the Cathedral of Siena, Italy. DeAgostini/Getty Images
Opposing views
Over the years, Christians have engaged in passionate debates over this central doctrine of Christian faith.
Two major approaches emerged: the “liberal” view and the “conservative” or “traditional” view. Current perspectives on the resurrection have been predominated by two questions: “Was Jesus’ body literally raised from the dead?” and “What relevance does the resurrection have for those struggling for justice?”
These questions emerged in the wake of theological modernism, a European and North American movement dating back to the mid-19th century that sought to reinterpret Christianity to accommodate the emergence of modern science, history and ethics.
Theological modernism led liberal Christian theologians to create an alternative path between the rigid orthodoxies of Christian churches and the rationalism of atheists and others.
This meant that liberal Christians were willing to revise or jettison cherished Christian beliefs, such as the bodily resurrection of Jesus, if such beliefs could not be explained against the bar of human reason.
Baptist views on the resurrection
Just like all other Christian denominations, Baptists are divided on the issue of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Arguably, what may be unique about the group is that Baptists believe that no external religious authority can force an individual member to adhere to the tenets of Christian faith in any prescribed way. One must be free to accept or reject any teaching of the church.
In the early 20th century, Baptists in the United States found themselves on both sides of a schism within American Christianity over doctrinal issues, known as the fundamentalist-modernist controversy.
The Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, a liberal Baptist pastor who served First Presbyterian Church and later Riverside Church in Manhattan, rejected the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Rather, Fosdick viewed the resurrection as a “persistence in [Christ’s] personality.”
In 1922, Fosdick delivered his famous sermon “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” rebuking fundamentalists for their failure to tolerate difference on doctrinal matters such as the infallibility of the Bible, the virgin birth and bodily resurrection, among others, and for downplaying the weightier matter of addressing the societal needs of the day.
In his autobiography, civil rights leader and Baptist minister the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. explained that in his early adolescence he denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
While attending Crozer Seminary in 1949, King wrote a paper trying to make sense of what led to the development of the Christian doctrine of Jesus’ bodily resurrection. For King, the experience of the early followers of Jesus was at the root of their belief in his resurrection.
“They had been captivated by the magnetic power of his personality,” King argued. “This basic experience led to the faith that he could never die.” In other words, the bodily resurrection of Jesus simply is the outward expression of early Christian experience, not an actual or, at least, a verifiable event in human history.
It is not clear from his later writings that King changed his views on the bodily resurrection. In one of his notable Easter sermons, King argued that the meaning behind the resurrection signaled a future where God will put an end to racial segregation.
Others within the Baptist movement disagreed. Like his fundamentalist forebears, conservative evangelical Baptist theologian Carl F.H. Henry argued in 1976 that all Christian doctrine can be rationally explained and can persuade any nonbeliever. Henry rigorously defended the bodily resurrection of Christ as a historical occurrence by appealing to the Gospels’ telling of the empty tomb and Christ’s appearances among his disciples after his resurrection.
In his six-volume magnum opus, “God, Revelation, and Authority,” Henry read these two elements of the Gospels as historical records that can be verified through modern historical methods.
Alternative views
A fresco of Christ with lifted arms, his head encircled by a halo, or nimbus, wearing a tunic and a mantle.
Christians hold a diversity of perspectives on Christ’s resurrection.
Bruno Balestrini / Electa / Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images
Despite their predominance, the liberal and conservative arguments on the resurrection of Jesus are not the only approaches held among Baptists.
In his book “Resurrection and Discipleship,” Baptist theologian Thorwald Lorenzen also outlines what he calls the “evangelical” approach, which seeks to transcend the distinctions of “liberal” and “conservative” approaches. He affirms, with the conservatives, the historical reality of the resurrection, but agrees with the liberals that such an event cannot be verified in the modern historical sense.
[3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter. Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.]
Other than these, there is a “liberation” approach, which stresses the social and political implications of the resurrection. Baptists who hold this view primarily interpret the resurrection as God’s response and commitment to liberating those who, like Jesus, experience poverty and oppression.
Given this diversity of perspectives on the resurrection, Baptists are not unique among Christians in engaging matters of faith practice. However, I argue that Baptists may be distinct in that they believe that such matters must be freely believed by one’s own conscience and not enforced by any external religious authority.
This is an updated version of a piece first published on April 15, 2021.
https://theconversation.com/christians- ... sts-181386
Why It Matters That Jesus Really Did Rise From the Dead
“Christ is risen.” “He is risen indeed.”
These words, with slight variations, will echo today in many different languages as most Christians around the world celebrate Easter. They are a statement of hope. And the church has always proclaimed that they are a statement of fact: that Jesus truly did rise from the dead. Christians mean these words literally.
“Make no mistake: if He rose at all, it was as His body,” begins John Updike’s exquisite poem “Seven Stanzas at Easter,” “if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the Church will fall.”
Updike’s poem, which he wrote in 1960 for an arts contest at his church (he won), is beloved by many, myself included. It tells the reader that the Resurrection is not a parable, not an event to mark the rebirth of spring. Easter is no tamed observance that respectable modern people can fit neatly into our sensibilities. The force of its claims must be reckoned with, yet their content can never be accepted in a purely philosophical materialist view of the world.
Updike is pushing back on an idea that became ascendant among mainline Protestant churches around the turn of the 20th century and still exists in some places: that belief in a bodily resurrection is incompatible with modern science, technology and medicine. But many who rejected the literal Resurrection of Jesus wanted to maintain some kind of Christian identity, so the story of Christ rising from the dead was recast as a purely spiritual event or a metaphor, not strictly, materially true. In contrast, Updike almost roars: “Let us not mock God with metaphor.”
Jesus, he says, rose with “hinged thumbs and toes.” A stone, textured, rough, heavy, was rolled away. A cold, valved heart regained its pulsing beat. A real angel “weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in the dawn light” announced a touchable reality.
Whatever else Christianity is, it is an assertion of historic fact. The New Testament invites us to examine the evidence. Its claim of a bodily resurrection was as strange and impossible — as Updike says, “monstrous” — when it was first made 2,000 years ago as it is now.
It would be so much more acceptable if Easter was merely a ritual communicating religious ideals, teaching us to cultivate the better angels of our nature. But if Easter is only an abstraction, it doesn’t mean much to me. I’m with the Apostle Paul who wrote and the billions of Christians around the world who profess, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.” If Jesus wasn’t actually resurrected, then Easter is less real than the budding buzz of spring, less real than a dying breath, less real than my own hands, feet and skin. I have no interest in a Christianity that isn’t deeply, profoundly, irreducibly material.
I don’t believe what I believe because I’m a particularly faithful or credulous person. There’s always that if — Updike’s “if he rose at all,” Paul’s “if Christ has not been raised” — with any historic claim or unrepeatable event. I am troubled by the “if.” I tend toward doubt. I believe, in part, because I doubt my doubts and I doubt my doubt about my doubts. I can keep going. Round and round, round and round.
But at the end of the day, there’s this unflinching claim to reality: an empty tomb, as Updike says, a stone rolled back, “not papier-mâché, not a stone in a story.” And I, like every person who encounters this claim, have to decide if Jesus’ earliest followers died for something they knew to be a lie.
Yet, believing that Jesus is risen is different than believing that Napoleon invaded Russia or that Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Though Christians say today that “Christ is risen” as a point of historic fact, we are saying something more as well. We say this to herald God’s power in the world and in our lives, even now.
Christians believe that because Jesus is risen, the same power that raised him from the dead is alive in us. The Book of Romans says, “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you.” This historical event leaps out of history into the present tense.
Another poem that I keep in conversation with Updike’s stanzas is Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” a gorgeous poem published in 1918 about a deadly shipwreck. Toward its end comes this line: “Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us.”
Easter, here, is a verb. It is not only an event but it’s something that happens to us and in us. This poem and prayer asks that Jesus transform our lives, that he rise not just in a tomb but in us as well, that the piercing light of the Resurrection fall on the darkness in our cramped selves.
Updike reminds us that if Jesus was not raised from the dead, the church is a lie, but Hopkins tells us that if he was and is raised, then absolutely everything can be changed and redeemed — even shipwrecks, even death. In the final pages of the Bible, the end of the long story of the redemption of the world, the writer describes a vision of Jesus. He is sitting on a throne and says, “Look” — most translations use “behold” but that sounds so churchy; I think what he’s saying is closer to “look,” “notice,” “hey, pay attention.” And then he says, “I am making all things new.”
Jesus promises a future when everything is made new. But the only real evidence that that is any more than wishful thinking is rooted in history, as solid as a stone rolled away. The Resurrection happening in truth, in real time, is the only evidence that that love in fact outlasts the grave, that what is broken can be mended, and that death and pain do not have the final word.
Not everything will be redeemed in our lifetime but, even now, we see newness breaking in, we see glimpses of the healing to come. We believe that, because “He is risen indeed,” we can know God and our lives can participate in the life of God, that our own biographies and mundane days collide with eternity.
If Jesus defeated death one morning in Jerusalem, then suddenly every revitalization, every new birth, every repaired relationship, every ascent from despair, every joy after grief, every recovery from addiction, every coral reef regeneration, every achievement of justice, every rediscovery of beauty, every miracle, every found hope becomes a sign of what Jesus did in history and of a promised future where all things will be made new.
This Easter I pray with Updike that we Christians around the world will “not mock God with metaphor” and I pray with Hopkins that God will “easter in us.” Easter, if it’s worth anything at all, is more than a metaphor. But it is more than mere history as well. It happened in a specific hour 2,000 years ago yet it cannot be captured in time. It is earthy and palpable but also a sign and a symbol pointing to a reality more mysterious than I can name. The Resurrection spoke the unsayable.
So I will settle for the words that can be said, words I’ve received from others: “Christ is risen.” “He is risen indeed.” Happy Easter!
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/17/opin ... 778d3e6de3
These words, with slight variations, will echo today in many different languages as most Christians around the world celebrate Easter. They are a statement of hope. And the church has always proclaimed that they are a statement of fact: that Jesus truly did rise from the dead. Christians mean these words literally.
“Make no mistake: if He rose at all, it was as His body,” begins John Updike’s exquisite poem “Seven Stanzas at Easter,” “if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the Church will fall.”
Updike’s poem, which he wrote in 1960 for an arts contest at his church (he won), is beloved by many, myself included. It tells the reader that the Resurrection is not a parable, not an event to mark the rebirth of spring. Easter is no tamed observance that respectable modern people can fit neatly into our sensibilities. The force of its claims must be reckoned with, yet their content can never be accepted in a purely philosophical materialist view of the world.
Updike is pushing back on an idea that became ascendant among mainline Protestant churches around the turn of the 20th century and still exists in some places: that belief in a bodily resurrection is incompatible with modern science, technology and medicine. But many who rejected the literal Resurrection of Jesus wanted to maintain some kind of Christian identity, so the story of Christ rising from the dead was recast as a purely spiritual event or a metaphor, not strictly, materially true. In contrast, Updike almost roars: “Let us not mock God with metaphor.”
Jesus, he says, rose with “hinged thumbs and toes.” A stone, textured, rough, heavy, was rolled away. A cold, valved heart regained its pulsing beat. A real angel “weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in the dawn light” announced a touchable reality.
Whatever else Christianity is, it is an assertion of historic fact. The New Testament invites us to examine the evidence. Its claim of a bodily resurrection was as strange and impossible — as Updike says, “monstrous” — when it was first made 2,000 years ago as it is now.
It would be so much more acceptable if Easter was merely a ritual communicating religious ideals, teaching us to cultivate the better angels of our nature. But if Easter is only an abstraction, it doesn’t mean much to me. I’m with the Apostle Paul who wrote and the billions of Christians around the world who profess, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.” If Jesus wasn’t actually resurrected, then Easter is less real than the budding buzz of spring, less real than a dying breath, less real than my own hands, feet and skin. I have no interest in a Christianity that isn’t deeply, profoundly, irreducibly material.
I don’t believe what I believe because I’m a particularly faithful or credulous person. There’s always that if — Updike’s “if he rose at all,” Paul’s “if Christ has not been raised” — with any historic claim or unrepeatable event. I am troubled by the “if.” I tend toward doubt. I believe, in part, because I doubt my doubts and I doubt my doubt about my doubts. I can keep going. Round and round, round and round.
But at the end of the day, there’s this unflinching claim to reality: an empty tomb, as Updike says, a stone rolled back, “not papier-mâché, not a stone in a story.” And I, like every person who encounters this claim, have to decide if Jesus’ earliest followers died for something they knew to be a lie.
Yet, believing that Jesus is risen is different than believing that Napoleon invaded Russia or that Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Though Christians say today that “Christ is risen” as a point of historic fact, we are saying something more as well. We say this to herald God’s power in the world and in our lives, even now.
Christians believe that because Jesus is risen, the same power that raised him from the dead is alive in us. The Book of Romans says, “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you.” This historical event leaps out of history into the present tense.
Another poem that I keep in conversation with Updike’s stanzas is Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” a gorgeous poem published in 1918 about a deadly shipwreck. Toward its end comes this line: “Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us.”
Easter, here, is a verb. It is not only an event but it’s something that happens to us and in us. This poem and prayer asks that Jesus transform our lives, that he rise not just in a tomb but in us as well, that the piercing light of the Resurrection fall on the darkness in our cramped selves.
Updike reminds us that if Jesus was not raised from the dead, the church is a lie, but Hopkins tells us that if he was and is raised, then absolutely everything can be changed and redeemed — even shipwrecks, even death. In the final pages of the Bible, the end of the long story of the redemption of the world, the writer describes a vision of Jesus. He is sitting on a throne and says, “Look” — most translations use “behold” but that sounds so churchy; I think what he’s saying is closer to “look,” “notice,” “hey, pay attention.” And then he says, “I am making all things new.”
Jesus promises a future when everything is made new. But the only real evidence that that is any more than wishful thinking is rooted in history, as solid as a stone rolled away. The Resurrection happening in truth, in real time, is the only evidence that that love in fact outlasts the grave, that what is broken can be mended, and that death and pain do not have the final word.
Not everything will be redeemed in our lifetime but, even now, we see newness breaking in, we see glimpses of the healing to come. We believe that, because “He is risen indeed,” we can know God and our lives can participate in the life of God, that our own biographies and mundane days collide with eternity.
If Jesus defeated death one morning in Jerusalem, then suddenly every revitalization, every new birth, every repaired relationship, every ascent from despair, every joy after grief, every recovery from addiction, every coral reef regeneration, every achievement of justice, every rediscovery of beauty, every miracle, every found hope becomes a sign of what Jesus did in history and of a promised future where all things will be made new.
This Easter I pray with Updike that we Christians around the world will “not mock God with metaphor” and I pray with Hopkins that God will “easter in us.” Easter, if it’s worth anything at all, is more than a metaphor. But it is more than mere history as well. It happened in a specific hour 2,000 years ago yet it cannot be captured in time. It is earthy and palpable but also a sign and a symbol pointing to a reality more mysterious than I can name. The Resurrection spoke the unsayable.
So I will settle for the words that can be said, words I’ve received from others: “Christ is risen.” “He is risen indeed.” Happy Easter!
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/17/opin ... 778d3e6de3