adminRev Tiriwanhu Stephen Magomo
To talk about Easter today is more like talking of any other day on the calendar. Easter has just come to be a mere holiday time; an exit or a long weekend. It is losing its real essence with every year that passes. The following issues seem to be the major reasons to this effect: (1) People are busy to observe Easter; (2) Lack of planning is yet another bacterium eating away people’s feelings and interests for Easter.
To you reader of this article, I ask, “what is Easter to you? Do you think your understanding is the same with that of the rest of your family, your friends and colleagues at work or school? How do you observe your Easter? Does the way you observe Easter add any value to it or is it not removing value from it? Considering the line of thought behind this article; can you share with us what you are doing to add value to this spiritual season called Easter? What are you doing, and what can we do to make Easter special and sacred? Can Christianity stand as a religion without the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ?
This article is an expansion and responds to last week’s article by my sister in Christ: Mercy Ngwebvu (Easter: Important event on Christian calendar). So, I am not going to repeat the issue of views from other churches here, but to share on the practical side of what we know about the Easter season. My wish is to attract people’s attention to think and reflect critically about this season, so that we may grow to accord it the reverence it deserves. To achieve this, I am going to define Easter as a term, and then define it from the Christian religions’ point of view.
The word Easter or Easter season does not exist in the Bible. What we have in Acts 12 v 4 of the King James Version of the Bible stands for Passover. In Hebrew, es’-ter is pascha which is peccha to mean a Passover Festival. The Passover Festival was a very special event for the Jewish nation because it marked how God saved them from slavery in Egypt. In Christian history the term was adopted to stand for a Christian season where Christians would come together to commemorate how God saved us from the wrath of death because of our sins, through Christ His only begotten Son. The adoption of this festival was done at a Christian Council of Nicea 325 with the idea to refer to the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In this view Christ became the Pascal Lamp.
The noble idea behind this decision of the Council was that, our Church Fathers understood that, we cannot stand as a religion without the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ; if we take Him as our Lord and Saviour. This means Christians need to take this season more serious. Ignoring this season would mean ignoring God’s total plan with us in this world and the world to come. Now, God is calling, Adam, where are you, Genesis 3 v 9; in terms of all that has to do with Easter?
Further to this, the term Easter is of pagan origin meaning to give light or to show light. It is very much associated with fertility and life. Now, if we bring these two ideas together; Easter implies hope and life. Therefore, in Christian terms Easter was associated with the coming back to life of our lord Jesus Christ after His death.
His form of death was understood to be with some sort of spiritual fertility to give us life and prosperity. For Christians Easter means victory over death, or overcoming life threatening powers. This is the resurrection of Christ. For us as Christians the resurrection is one of the things which hold the foundation of our religion and faith. Christ died and was buried, on the third day He rose from the dead.
The picture in its total sense is; Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour truly died on the day which become the Good Friday. He was buried, and on Sunday morning which was the third day; He rose from the dead and ascended back to His Father and our creator God. For us, Christ conquered the wrath of death. The earth gave Him forth because it could not contain Him for long, because He is God.
These three experiences – death, Burial and resurrection are very important for us as Christians, though we differ as per denomination on how we observe them, but most denominations share a similar observance of these three Passion experiences. It is these three experiences which have lead some Churches to observe Easter as a revival time, and for me; Easter is a revival time and it should be treated as such.
The above view is the key to how one would observe Easter. We can be in the same Church but having different views, it’s normal. Even the depth of our faith is not the same. So, it’s normal, to differ, abnormality will only come when we avoid sharing our spiritual acumen with others. And the production of this article serves to cough out this abnormality and to clear the whole confusion vis-à-vis Easter.
Something important to note; we can’t talk about Easter the resurrection, without the death and burial of Christ first. This calls for all people who claim to be Christians, to observe “Good Friday” seriously. This day on which Christ was crucified and died became to be known as Good Friday. It’s Good Friday because this is the death which took away our burdens, this is the death which cleansed us from sins, this is the death which gave us life and it strengthened our relationship with God the Father.
The deep experience of Good Friday will obviously take us step by step closer to those experiences of the last moments of Christ with the outside world. To the true disciples of Jesus Christ, this day is very special and sacred and so should not be compromised. Easter is not to be observed from a distance; we have to enter into it by going through Christ’s experience. We have to draw these experiences from a distance into our life situations. We are joining Christ in His journey – the lonesome valley because we need Him too to walk with us our lonesome valleys; as individuals, families, communities and as the nation at large not forgetting the world as God’s Global Village. We can’t do this in depth without joining Christ and take those memories serious. We can’t do this without observing Easter season as a Revival time; after all, we are the beneficial. We need also to learn from Paul who says, ‘I die with Christ and I rise with Christ’.
For us Christians, we believe the death of Jesus Christ has a very powerful meaning to consider.
Christ died to take away our sins as an act of atonement, and save us from the wrath of death due to our sins. The question then is are we not willing to be part and parcel with Christ’s experiences on Good Friday and die with Him as we die from our sins? Are we not willing to allow the spiritual ritual of Calvary to transform our old life for a better and new life?
For us Christians, Christ was buried and the ritual behind this burial is taking away our old and evil attitudes, characters and deeds. For us Christians, Christ rose from the dead and he ascended to His Father and our God.
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