Resurrection Sunday or Easter Sunday
April 15th, 2006 by Milton | Posted in Ministry Philosophy
I have yearned for some feed back on this. I have for years been trying to get folks to say Resurrection instead of Easter, why? Politics or Christianity? I guess that I just want to point everyone to Christ and Easter only says rabbits and eggs to me. I do not want to get into any personal preference issues here but I do want your hearts. There are arguments that fall into a rose by any other name would smell as sweet and those that say whose day is it anyway? Recently I even heard of some folks who are angry because Christians want to call Easter: Resurrection Sunday and how awful that is.
Wow! Isn’t this Our Lord’s Day? Aren’t we the custodians of the Gospel and so the day matters? So if we choose to call our day Resurrection Sunday should it matter to others? Well, that is where the rose becomes a different flower and maybe a Rock. If Easter is a meaningless term then what does it matter Milton just call it Easter. But the rhetoric of today is not so.
Here is a quote from Christianity today by an author Ted Olsen in 1998:
The fact of the matter is no one knows for sure, but our best bet comes from Bede (”The Venerable”), a late-seventh-century historian and scholar from Anglo-Saxon England. He says Easter’s name comes from the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre, associated with spring and fertility, and celebrated around the vernal equinox. So there you go. As Christmas was moved to coincide with (and supplant) the pagan celebration of winter, Easter was likely moved to coincide and replace the pagan celebration of spring. And while we’re at it, the Easter Bunny comes from these pagan rites of spring as well, but more from pagan Germany than pagan Britain. Eighteenth-century German settlers brought “Oschter Haws” (never knew he had a name, did you?) to America, where Pennsylvania Dutch settlers prepared nests for him in the garden or barn. On Easter Eve, the rabbit laid his colored eggs in the nests in payment. In Germany, old Oschter lays red eggs on Maundy Thursday. If anyone knows why children in an agrarian society would believe a rabbit lays eggs, please tell us or a historian near you. We’re all dying to know.
Now we know some history on this but what does it really matter? So what does all this have to do with a controversy today over the name of the day? Why does it matter? Because it is the central and most important item in our Faith and so it must be clear. Clarity will speak to our unsaved brothers and sisters. I am nothing (Milton) but a dirty sign pointing to a Holy God but I want my pointer focused on Him. When we Worship we worship what we know and who we know and because we know. This wonderful day was co-opted because some early brothers and sisters wanted to connect better with the unsaved and so caused there to be an obfuscation of our purpose. Yes bunnies are cute and chicks but if I had a burning house and my neighbor who was coming to get me out came with a fireblanket in one hand and a pink shovel in the other saying I should take both I might get it wrong! The shovel would be useful if I were digging through the floor but the fireblanket would get me out and save my life.
We want folks to get the truth about us and yet we seem to hide His Great Victory under chicks and ducks and in plastic grass. I love kids and want them to enjoy a wonderful Childhood but today we cram so much into the whole “Family” Idolatry that we forget this is NOT a family day! This is a day of wonder and power and rejoicing! Jesus over 2000 years ago sealed our hope in His Love as He rose from the dead! A much greater joy for every child than a nice colored egg. Yes they can be turned to make a point but why go there in the first place? And to go there with a pagan goddess of fertility? We say “so what is the harm?” What else have you lied to me about mom and dad if the Easter Bunny whom I do not see is also a lie? I cannot see Jesus….. “I learned about some fun rituals while I was a kid and now that I am older I think I see their point after all they are older than Christianity and so they must be better..”
Well that is as much as I want to say to get the ball rolling. I want to hear your hearts on this and your minds. We can tilt at windmills and we can get distracted but isn’t this really where the line must be drawn? Tradition is nice but it is often wrong and to speak to anyone about the Lord by first handing him a basket and then looking for an egg seems to be too much saccharin when the Lord is all about Honey from the Honey comb!
This entry was posted on Saturday, April 15th, 2006 at 7:18 pm and is filed under Ministry Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Miltonius:
Regardless of what folks call it, it doesn’t change my faith in the risen Christ.
Brian