Why I Don't Really Care All That Much About Easter

According to the Gospels^*, Jesus was given over to the Temple authorities and the Roman government they worked in collusion with on the first night of Passover. Contrary to popular understanding, Pesach begins on the same day every year, 15 Nisan. Jewish lunar calendars don't run in accord with Gregorian solar calendars, of course, so to us goyim, it looks like it changes place all the time.

For reasons I'm about to get into, the early church^~ decided not to celebrate the Resurrection in line with Passover. Instead, they opted for the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

How... goy of them.

Usually this isn't a problem, but this year, it illustrates how far things have digressed in the Christian tradition, because Passover doesn't happen this week; it happens on 19 April.

It serves as a starting point for examining why I'm no tremendous fan of Easter. As it happens, Easter wasn't celebrated by the original church. In fact, they probably never thought to separate Easter celebrations from Pesach celebrations; this is reflected in how many Eastern Orthodox denominations still celebrate "Pesach" according to the Jewish calendar. Congruently, there was no special holiday for remembering Jesus' death and resurrection because every Sunday was a celebration of Jesus' conquering of the grave! Paul goes on at length about how to celebrate (and not celebrate) this in I Corinthians. The tradition is also attested by Paul's preaching in a house on "the first day of the week" where a kid falls asleep and plops out of the window.

So, the need for a special Resurrection holiday, separate from the celebration of Passover, is a little superfluous. I'll grant though that if anything in Christian tradition should be celebrated superfluously (and the weekly – not yearly – celebrations of the early church certainly attest to this) it should be the Resurrection. This aspect alone would not have me jaded on the whole Easter concept.

But there's more...

Y'see, initially, Christians celebrated a Jewish holiday. They used Jewish traditions to commemorate Jesus whom they thought to be the Jewish Messiah. Jewish symbolism of liberation and atonement became significant in remembering Christ's death. Terminology associated with Jewish temple worship is still central to remembering the Death and Resurrection.

Seeing a pattern here?

So when we commemorate a Lord who is so thoroughly Jewish, why do we celebrate a Pagan holiday?

Because people like Constantine really didn't like Jews, and here I quote:

And first of all, it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul. For we have it in our power, if we abandon their custom, to prolong the due observance of this ordinance to future ages, by a truer order, which we have preserved from the very day of the passion until the present time. Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Saviour a different way.

Never mind the horrific leaps of logic and historical chicanery here from the very people who established the New Testament canon and should have known better than to think that while Jesus was celebrating Passover He instituted a Germanic fertility ritual... but honestly? When you know that this is why the Church celebrates Easter in lieu of Passover, the Easter holiday loses its lustre.

The Resurrection should constantly be held in our hearts. It is the single greatest source of hope, not only for Christians, but the entire world. It is the establishment of what shall come some day to us all – life from the dead, an end to pain and suffering, the Redemption, the Last Day, and the making right of all that is wrong. It means that life does not end in the grave. It shows that Jesus is who He said He is. It is the fact upon which all hope rests. Without the resurrection, we only have the story of injustice, corruption, persecution and death. It is only the story of a good man meeting the end that every good men gets – death at the hands of an uncaring, meaningless universe, and a brutal, ignorant and stupid race.

Here's to the Resurrection. But forgive me if I don't celebrate it along with Easter.

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* - We'll ignore the issue of John putting Jesus' betrayal on the night before Passover. I have issues with John. But that's a whole other entry...

~ - Y'know, the church that wasn't early enough to stay free from Greco-Roman cultural influence, know the disciples personally, speak Hebrew, or consist mostly of Jews like its founders, but still early enough for soft-hearted reconstructionists and complete idiots to claim that they had some sort of insight on the truth that we don't have and can remain content with, while not having their challenges challenged by the Jewish sitz im Leben of the New Testament.

Comments

[Eric O]

My vote: celebrate Yom Kippur. Easter should be (1) a holiday of restoration in our personal relationships and (2) entreating Jesus to enact a national conciliation before God on our collective guilt...to cover over our national wickedness (in America: avarice and selfishness). There is no rite to enact this necessary act of collective expurgation in Christian consciousness. One I deem very necessary.

When early Christians shouted "He is risen indeed!!" believe me, it sprung from this conscious act of collective sin-expurgation. It was a call to enact world-redemption.

[Fab]

Aye, that Constantine guy. I'm always affected by some decision that guy made. Talk about Dominionism. Because of his attitude, we have a much harder time sharing the gospel with Jews. People don't even see Jesus as a Jew because of that attitude. @!&* grumble grumble.