Happy Easter thingee

 

Happy Easter thingee!

As explained to me by Philip H Lewis, Easter always comes on

"The first Sunday after the first full moon after the sun crosses the equator”

SPOILER ALERT! Easter Bunny ain’t real. Easter comes to this generation via verbal traditions from ancient worship related to coming of springtime. Colored eggs and candy are conspiracies to sell stuff to kids and their sugar addicted parents -- who probably once were kids. Also, Easter is not a holiday, just the indispensable Holy Day of the religion known as Christianity.

The only true constant about Easter is that the date varies each year. The month and day of Easter Sunday varies because it comes right after the Jewish celebration of Passover, meaning month and day is based on Lunar Cycles. Thus Easter comes “the first Sunday after the first full moon after the sun crosses the equator” (also known as first day of Spring). Everything else about the day – including eggs, candy, and bunny -- is a matter of what the previous generation brought down to your own.

Because traditions of Easter have been handed down by word of mouth, multiple observances of the day have arisen in families and cultures wherever Christianity has gone. And, as it is with most families, ours had its own traditions...

Easter Sunday was a very special day in the home in which my sister Diane, brother Terry, and I were reared. Of course there was a basket of candy and decorated eggs as long as we lived at home. Our mother, the wisest woman to ever walk the earth, “allowed” us the treat of actually eating an Easter egg for breakfast – candy had to wait until after church. Don’t remember hearing much about the Easter bunny growing up, though. If memory serves, and it rarely does, the bunny thingee probably didn’t get much play after, say, starting Kindergarten.

The highlight of Easter in the Lewis home was going to church. Easter Sunday service was always good for some kind of treat being handed out by the deacons. Most importantly, every Easter Sunday involved preaching of the death, burial and resurrection of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. According to overarching, traditional, historical, conservative interpretation of Scriptures, Jesus was raised from death the Sunday after Passover. This, we came to understand, was the reason for observing the day as Resurrection Sunday! That bunny thingee just happened to come on the same weekend.

As told to me by one with more study and understanding than most, the message of Resurrection Sunday is the indispensable belief separating Christianity from all other religious truth-claims. Christianity stands or falls on the belief in Christ’s resurrection from death and return to heaven:

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.  More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.  For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.  And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.  If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (I Corinthians 15.12-15 NIV)

As it is with children of devout parents, a child’s worldview encompasses what is taught by those parents and sources the parents trust. Understanding this common childhood experience is important to someone in their 80^th year. Important because truth is important. It was therefore imperative for this observer to look to traditional, historical, conservative interpretation of Scriptures as they have come down to us. As was said of the Bereans so it should be said of those who would celebrate Easter:

Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. (Acts 17.11 NIV)

So, children of this generation, what’s important to you about that Easter thingee? Is Easter the celebration of a new springtime? Or, is Easter the message of resurrection to new life? Just asking for some future generation.

Happy Easter thingee!

theDaddy!