THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
Many of you in my "reading
audience"
have, no doubt, participated in services related to Holy Week, the week
leading
up to Easter Sunday. The climax of the week is Easter, which we often
term
"Resurrection Sunday."
When we observe Holy Week and
Easter, we
are engaging in a world-wide observation of some of the most
significant events
in Christendom.
Have you ever wondered why, on
the
calendar, we sometimes observe this Holy Season in March and sometimes
in
April?
By the second century AD, the
Feast of
Easter was well established, but there was confusion about when to
observe it.
Then the Christian Emperor Constantine called the Council of Nicaea in
325. It
was at that council in the fourth century that the body of sages
determined
that the best time to observe Easter was the Sunday following the first
full
moon after the vernal equinox. And by way of explanation, the vernal
equinox is
the beginning day of Spring, the date when day and night are of equal
length.
As churches observed the Season
of Christ's
Passion, his trial, his crucifixion and his resurrection, which we know
now as
Holy Week, the observances became mixed somewhat with pagan practices
already
observed in some countries where the story of Jesus was proclaimed.
From St. Bede, often referred to
as the
Venerable Bede, an eighth century English historian, we learn why our
religious
celebration is called Easter. In Teutonic mythology, Eostre was the
Anglo-Saxon
goddess of spring. A season was celebrated at the beginning of Spring.
When the
early English Christians wanted to have more influence on their pagan
neighbors, they decided to call the celebration of Christ's
resurrection
Easter- a name similar to the old goddess Eostre. In that way, the
Christians
felt that those who were already celebrating a season of rebirth would
be more
open to hearing and accepting the heart of the gospel story, the death,
burial
and resurrection of the Christ, the Savior.
Churches today seek to tell anew
the gospel
story by emphasizing the days of Holy week. Among the most celebrated
are Maundy
Thursday, the day of the institution of the Lord's Supper with the
disciples in
the upper room; Good Friday, the day of the death sacrifice of the Son
of God;
and Sunday, Easter, the Day of Resurrection.
How, then, do we associate
Easter eggs,
Easter bunnies, and Easter lilies with the Resurrection? We could
attribute
these to commercialization of a sacred day, as at Christmas we are
gung-ho for
gift giving. Eggs represent new life and are based on practices common
in
ancient cultures. An old Latin proverb, translated, means "all life
comes
from an egg." Eggs became a part of spring festivals and of Easter.
The Easter bunny is also
universal and
secular in origin. But we should, in all correctness, say the Easter
Hare, not
the Easter Rabbit. It is commonly held that hares are born with their
eyes
open, whereas rabbits are born with their eyes closed. The open eyes of
the
hares, according to legend, were fixed on that full moon following the
vernal
equinox. Both eggs and hares were symbols of the goddess Eostre, from
whom the
name Easter was derived.
So common are these customs now
that there
is a danger that the fun of Easter for children overshadows the
significant
meaning of the day. Parents and teachers have a responsibility to teach
the
real truth of Easter. The truth is well illustrated by a story going
the rounds
now. A teacher gave her nineteen students a plastic easter egg and
asked each
one to return it with a story of how it represented Easter day. She
feared that
one child who was a slow learner would not get the significance of the
assignment. On the day when each child opened his/her egg and explained
its
meaning, the little boy brought his empty egg. The teacher knew he had
not
understood. But then he said, "My egg is empty because the tomb was
empty.
Jesus rose from the dead." The slow child had really understood the
significance of Easter and expressed it in a meaningful way.
Lilies began to be used as
Easter
decorations in the 1880s in
Whatever you experience during
Holy Week
and Easter, may you be brought closer to the truths of hope and life.
c2007 by
Ethelene Dyer
Jones; published Apr. 5, 2007 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville,
GA.
Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Updated August 12,
2009
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