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Easter and Eastertide, 2021
4 years ago
Easter Sunday and Eastertide
"On the third day the friends of Christ coming at day-break to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realised the new wonder; but even they hardly realised that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but of the dawn."
~ G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
Happy Easter! After today I can take a break from writing these. xD
Easter is, with Christmas, one of the two great feasts of the Christian faith. It is an event that sets Christianity apart from other religions. For most religious, they deal either with a remote mythical past or with universal truths. Christianity, however, makes an outrageous claim -- that a man was God Incarnate, and that to prove this he came back to life after being executed. It is not proposed as a parable or myth, but as an historical event, the be believed in -- or rejected -- based on the testimony of the historical record.
"And if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain: and your faith is also vain." (I Cor. 15:14)
Without the truth of this event, there is no point in calling oneself Christian; St. Paul assures of that. But the entire meaning of the event may not be appreciated: Christ rises in the flesh, and resumes living -- eating, talking, travelling. It is a promise that Heaven is not some ethereal, "spiritual" utopia, but the renewal -- the reinvigoration -- and perfection of the life we know. Our bodies shall be transformed, in ways we can scarce imagine, though I believe we can expect to reflect what we wish; but we will still be enfleshed.
When this will be we do not know. In the meantime we must still deal with the ignorance and suffering that are the consequences of evil. But at the same time, the Kingodm of God is at hand, already present to lift up our hearts and make our burdens light with the knowledge that God loves us and the hope that, after the travail of this life and its mortal end, we shall rise again with Christ unto immortality.
About the date of Easter there can be no doubt, as it is intrinsically linked to the Jewish feast of Passover. Yet I fancy God chose this date, so to bless the springtide of the north and comfort the winter of the south with the promise of spring. As the earth is renewed in the spring, so was the whole Earth renewed by the Resurrection, looking forward to the final renewal.
"Each Sunday of the season is treated as a Sunday of Easter." (Wikipedia entry on Eastertide) Strictly speaking, o course, every Sunday is a little Easter -- that's why most Christians observe it as the "new sabbath", to commemorate the New Creation just as the old Sabbath commemorated the old Creation. But, as with Christmas, the Easter season is an extension of the holiday. I hope the exultation of this day remains with us throughout the season, which ends on Pentecost.
Until then. <3
"On the third day the friends of Christ coming at day-break to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realised the new wonder; but even they hardly realised that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but of the dawn."
~ G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
Happy Easter! After today I can take a break from writing these. xD
Easter is, with Christmas, one of the two great feasts of the Christian faith. It is an event that sets Christianity apart from other religions. For most religious, they deal either with a remote mythical past or with universal truths. Christianity, however, makes an outrageous claim -- that a man was God Incarnate, and that to prove this he came back to life after being executed. It is not proposed as a parable or myth, but as an historical event, the be believed in -- or rejected -- based on the testimony of the historical record.
"And if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain: and your faith is also vain." (I Cor. 15:14)
Without the truth of this event, there is no point in calling oneself Christian; St. Paul assures of that. But the entire meaning of the event may not be appreciated: Christ rises in the flesh, and resumes living -- eating, talking, travelling. It is a promise that Heaven is not some ethereal, "spiritual" utopia, but the renewal -- the reinvigoration -- and perfection of the life we know. Our bodies shall be transformed, in ways we can scarce imagine, though I believe we can expect to reflect what we wish; but we will still be enfleshed.
When this will be we do not know. In the meantime we must still deal with the ignorance and suffering that are the consequences of evil. But at the same time, the Kingodm of God is at hand, already present to lift up our hearts and make our burdens light with the knowledge that God loves us and the hope that, after the travail of this life and its mortal end, we shall rise again with Christ unto immortality.
About the date of Easter there can be no doubt, as it is intrinsically linked to the Jewish feast of Passover. Yet I fancy God chose this date, so to bless the springtide of the north and comfort the winter of the south with the promise of spring. As the earth is renewed in the spring, so was the whole Earth renewed by the Resurrection, looking forward to the final renewal.
"Each Sunday of the season is treated as a Sunday of Easter." (Wikipedia entry on Eastertide) Strictly speaking, o course, every Sunday is a little Easter -- that's why most Christians observe it as the "new sabbath", to commemorate the New Creation just as the old Sabbath commemorated the old Creation. But, as with Christmas, the Easter season is an extension of the holiday. I hope the exultation of this day remains with us throughout the season, which ends on Pentecost.
Until then. <3
