Imagine you are alive in the first few hundred years after Jesus’ death on the cross. It will take almost 500 years before the church sorts out whether or not Jesus was God or a man who was God’s son. The New Testament – gospels, letters, and book of revelation – is just being written and gathered. This is no small feat in the days when writing is etched onto parchment or stones, books are almost non-existent, and almost everyone is illiterate. Jews and Gentiles – Greeks, Romans, heathens and pagans are everywhere. Your close friends are believers but there are not many of you. Your small tribe desperately wants the new religion to survive.
You begin to resent and despise the Jews. Of course, many of you come from within the Jewish faith. Jesus himself was a Jew. You are well aware that this emergent religion, Christianity, isn’t Judaism, or anything else. It is different. A clear break must be made in order to distinguish the new faith from Judaism. You need your own stories and rituals.
But every spring there is a problem. You still celebrate the ancient Jewish custom of Passover. You commemorate the children of Israel’s escape from slavery in Egypt when the ten plagues were sent upon the Egyptians. During the tenth and last plague, the Israelites sacrificed spring lambs. And as directed, they took the blood and marked a spot over the doorpost of each house so that the plague would ‘pass over’ and not kill the first-born child. The Israelite children were not killed; their homes were passed over. Pharaoh equivocated and let the people go. Hearing they were free, the Israelites left so fast, the bread dough didn’t even have time to rise. The seven days of Passover are celebrated with unleavened bread and prayers are offered in thanksgiving.
Once again it is Passover. And you have a different story to tell. Jesus died on the cross and three days later, he was resurrected. Accounts differ about the details, but this is how Christianity will be defined. Gradually you and your Christian brothers and sisters stop celebrating Passover. You borrow from the pagans and adopt Easter.
Actually, it wasn’t really borrowing. The pagans have celebrated the cycle of death and rebirth every spring for millennium. The very name Easter is derived from Eastre, the Teutonic goddess of spring. Other sources date Easter all the way back to the great flood and the Tower of Babel. Noah – who built the ark and saved the animals two by two – had a grandson, Nimrod, whom the Jewish Bible called a mighty one who made all of the people rebellious against God. His wife was Queen Semiramis who was also known as Easter.
King Nimrod became a sun god. Easter’s illegitimate son, who was ‘supernaturally conceived’, was created from the sun god’s seed and became the savior. His mother, Easter, was worshipped. In time, the son was killed and mother Easter wept so much that her tears watered the vegetation. Her tears of grief were like winter rain and in this way, her son was mystically renewed each spring.
The Hebrew Scriptures are harsh in accounting this story, calling this religion cultish, idolatrous, and false. But it is a perfect background over which to incorporate the Christian story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The early Christians fought hard against Judaism, but found fertile ground in the pagan rituals of Easter to overlay their story.
Many adjustments had to be worked out, but by the time Christian bishops met at the Council of Nicea in 325 c.e., the major point of discussion was about the date. It was decided that Easter should always fall on a Sunday. At that point, Easter in the Roman church was separated from the Jewish calendar and became a distinct ritual. Christianity solidified as a religion.
Regardless of its origin, the day of the week it is celebrated, or by whom, Easter is true. As is often the case, the details are debatable. Even the gospel accounts vary about the form in which Jesus was resurrected. But the larger truth of death and rebirth play out every season with the turn of the earth on its axis. The story of Easter is true in Nature and it is true for each of us. Christianity gives us a wonderfully explicit story to remind us each spring of the reality of death and the hope of resurrection.
Jesus was a powerful teacher. I believe that if more people actually acted on his teachings and spent less time squabbling about them, the world would be a much better place. In so many ways, Jesus taught us how to love. Just as it takes deep sorrow to know great joy, it takes profound humility to experience unconditional love. You have to deny your own ego to love fully. It is the Easter story. You have to die to self in order to live.
Have you ever been overwhelmed by a show of love? It doesn’t always happen in big ways. Sometimes, a stranger’s kindness is a work of love. You receive a gift with no strings attached. Or you receive wise counsel that challenges you to live with integrity.
The giver wants nothing in return, but in order to receive, you must be willing to let go of control. It is risky. You cannot be a control freak and be humble. I know. I spent a lot of years thinking I was in control and only when I was powerless to do anything but accept someone’s kindness, did I realize that my delusion had prevented me from experiencing love.
It wasn’t a very big thing at all. On the surface, it was miniscule compared to the lesson I had to learn. I had just moved to Canada fresh out of seminary. I had used all my savings to go to school and arrived in my new country dependent upon the meager paycheck of an intern. I had been in Canada for about two weeks and I got pulled over by a police officer; blue lights flashing, siren blasting, the whole works. I pulled over and in a few minutes, I was signing a ticket acknowledging I had failed to use a turn signal as I navigated quiet neighborhood streets. The fine was about $200, which was my grocery allotment for the month. I cried. What else was a newbie minister in a foreign country to do?
I have no recollection how anyone found out about it. I don’t easily share my shortcomings but this one seemed so ridiculous. And the money was real. It would take until Christmas to pay the ticket if I wanted to eat.
A Sunday or two later, at the end of the service, one of the elders of the church came up to me after the last hymn. She gave me a hug and said she had heard that I had had a run-in with the law. The hat had been passed around and in the envelope she pressed into my hand, was exactly enough to pay the ticket. Again, all I could do was cry. But this time, it was in total humility. The only thing I could do was to receive love.
This might not sound like an Easter story to you, but for me, it was. I had to let go of control – to let my ego die – to accept the gift of love. This small token restored my hope in humanity and my place in it.
I invite you to think about the times when you have received gifts that were unexpected and incredibly timely. Recall those gifts whether they were a simple hug, smile, or word of encouragement, which renewed your spirit.
Think about a time when you have given a gift, helped someone, or offered kind words when nothing was expected and you had nothing to gain in return; a gift of pure love that had no strings or expectations. You might not have even seen it being received.
Jesus dying on the cross and being resurrected three days later is a story that made a religion. Whatever your personal belief about this central event of Christianity, the universal message in the Easter story is that death and rebirth. Nature itself has been modeling Easter since the beginning of time. Cycles of life beginning and ending, ending and beginning; winter rains to spring flowers, dormant seed to green shoots, even night giving way to day. Humans in our relationships with each other, act out the Easter story too. In is best displayed in expressions of love – the giving of ourselves without expecting anything in return. In this way we nurture more than our bodies; we nurture the spirit.
I am reminded of the early Christians trying to figure out how to tell their story. Until they did, they celebrated Passover, that great ritual of thanksgiving. And it is with a spirit of great thanksgiving that we can all celebrate all the stories of Easter. Spring is here and love is all around. Happy Easter.
Blessed be and amen.
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