This is the great, sacred day of the Christian year. I hope most of\u00a0you have been to church today; but, if you have not, you have perhaps listened\u00a0to the glorious Easter music and heard a stirring Easter message on\u00a0the radio. Yet there are some interesting things about Easter that are\u00a0not familiar to many people.<\/p>\n
First of all, though Christianity gives Easter its best and most profound\u00a0meaning, certain fundamental ideas and ideals told in the Easter message\u00a0are found in many of the world’s religions. Easter, more than any other\u00a0festival of the church, contains ideas and truths that go back to the dimmest\u00a0records of man’s history conceptions that have come down to us from\u00a0far-away prehistoric man.<\/p>\n
Before it can come to life as a plant, the seed must be buried in the\u00a0earth. Before it can soar aloft on its brilliant butterfly wings,’ the caterpillar\u00a0must enter the long sleep in its chrysalis tomb. Before the awakening\u00a0of spring, the earth is shrouded in the cold death of winter. Jesus once\u00a0said: “Unless a grain of corn fall into the ground and die, it remains alone.\u00a0But if it d:les, it brings forth much fruit.” \u00a0Thus Christ summed up the strange\u00a0truth so hard for us to understand, the truth that life is ever dependent\u00a0upon death.<\/p>\n
A multitude of grains are gathered together and die under the grinding\u00a0stone, and out of this death comes bread, the staff of life. Then that bread\u00a0is buried in the human body that it may live and grow. Then that body itself\u00a0returns to the earth, where its chemicals give life once more to ‘the buried\u00a0seed. That is the great cycle of life. Without death it cannot continue.<\/p>\n
Very few people, even educated people, think with abstract ideas. Only\u00a0when the great abstractions are turned into concrete images do we comprehend\u00a0them at all. And the more primitive, the less cultured, a people, tlle more\u00a0colorful those symbols are sure to be. That is the way myths and legends are\u00a0built up into dramatic rituals and the beautiful symbols of cultured art.<\/p>\n
Many people think a myth is just a made-up yarn of fiction. Not so. A\u00a0myth is much more than that. It is an attempt of primitive man to explain\u00a0some strange phenomenon of nature, like thunder, or growing plants, or recurrent\u00a0floods, or the last great mystery of death.<\/p>\n
The oldest myths behind the great central truth of the Easter story concern\u00a0our favorite symbol of Easter, the egg. Just as it is the first memory\u00a0of Easter that most of us carry from our own childhood, so it takes humanity\u00a0back to the oldest known civilizations on earth, Egypt, Mesapotamia, and\u00a0India.<\/p>\n
In Egypt the God Geb produced a mighty egg, from which the whole universe\u00a0was born. Out of this egg came the phoenix, the fabulous bird which was the\u00a0symbol of the sun. In the myth the phoenix died by setting fire to its own\u00a0nest and burning itself to ashes. In those ashes was an egg from which the\u00a0phoenix hatched again. The Hindu and Mesapotamian stories are similar.<\/p>\n
Now the point is that the human mind is of the same essential nature\u00a0in all times and places. Hidden in its unconscious depths are the profound\u00a0truths of God, and those truths find expression in symbols that are remarkably\u00a0alike in all parts of the earth.<\/p>\n
Why should our modern Easter be associated with these ancient myths?<\/p>\n
Because there is an obvious parallel between the rising of Christ from death\u00a0and the rising of the universe from the original darkness of chaos. Between\u00a0the phoenix myth and our Easter there is an even more striking parallel. Both\u00a0emphasize the profound truth that out of sacrifice and seeming defeat come\u00a0victory and life. The phoenix rises from the ashes, Jesus from the tomb.<\/p>\n
It is no accident that Easter annually comes near the vernal equinox.<\/p>\n
It is not a fixed date, like Christmas, because in ancient times it was\u00a0associated with the lunar as well .as the solar calendar, with the moon as\u00a0well as the sun. Hence the date of Easter is the first Sunday after the first\u00a0full moon following the 21st of March, the date of the spring equinox.<\/p>\n
Long before the time of historical records, the ancient legends assure\u00a0us that the quarter of the sun’s journey which lies between the spring equinox\u00a0and the summer solstice has always been a season of religious rites\u00a0connected with the sowing and the fruition of crops. Not only is there striking\u00a0similarity between seed and living plant on the one hand, and the entombed\u00a0Jesus and the risen Christ on the other hand, but we are also reminded\u00a0that Jesus likened himself to the vine and ordained that the blood of\u00a0the cruShed grape Should be the sacramental symbol of his own blood in celebration\u00a0of the Lord’s Supper. The fact that bread is made from ground\u00a0corn and wine from crushed grapes has long been connected in religious symbolism\u00a0with the idea that eternal life is the result of sacrifice — of\u00a0life-giving death.<\/p>\n
Do not misunderstand our meaning. We are not suggesting that the Christ\u00a0story is a mere survival of old myths tacked on to the true history of a\u00a0Galilean prophet. We are rather emphasizing the fact that Christ brought in\u00a0definite, human historical manner the same divine truth that the old myths\u00a0sought more feebly to explain. Christianity sees Christ as God in human form\u00a0— the complete embodiment of the ideal pattern or divine law by which the\u00a0universe and man are created and have meaning — in Short, the incarnation\u00a0of what Christians for twenty centuries have called the Word of God.<\/p>\n
If then the Word of God is the design in the mind of the Architect of\u00a0the Universe, there is every reason to expect resemblances between the life\u00a0of Christ and all the processes of nature that are found in the heavens, on\u00a0the earth, in man himself. That is why Christ rose from the dead with the\u00a0ascending sun and at the season when crops rise from the ground. For the\u00a0works of the Creator are all of one piece. Behind Christ and the crops and\u00a0the seasons and the inner workings of the human mind is one spirit, one\u00a0rythro, one moving purpose, one God.<\/p>\n
As the centuries roll by, numerous customs and folk-ways come to surround all the religious rites and festivals. Easter is no exception.\u00a0Eggs have been a part of the Easter folk-ways for many centuries. Sometimes\u00a0they are left white or brown, sometimes they are gaily dyed. In parts\u00a0of Eastern Europe they are elaborately painted with crosses. In France children\u00a0making their first confession on Holy Saturday take a present of eggs\u00a0to the priest. In other countries children hunt for eggs in the garden. In\u00a0our own national capital they\u00b7 roll them on the White House lawn. Today, not\u00a0only in America, but in Europe as well, candy eggs are prevalent.<\/p>\n
Then there is the Easter bunny. He came to America long ago from Central\u00a0and Western Europe. His origin is one of those peculiar twists of language,\u00a0where one word that sounds like another confuses the first thing with the\u00a0second. In many parts of Europe, even to this day, the last sheaf of grain\u00a0taken at the harvest is called the hare, and its cutting is called “cutting\u00a0the tail of the hare”. An Easter hare hunt — hunting rabbits, not grain\u00a0sheaths — was observed in England from remote Anglo-Saxon times, and in Hungary\u00a0and South Germany it has long been the custom for children to put an\u00a0image of a rabbit in the basket prepared for the Easter eggs. There is little\u00a0doubt that the rabbit became associated with eggs and growing grain because\u00a0of the two meanings of the word hare.<\/p>\n
Then there are Easter hot cross buns. In the time of Samuel Pepys, three\u00a0hundred years ago, peddlers went through the London streets on Good Friday\u00a0morning, crying:<\/p>\n
“Hot cross buns, hot cross buns,<\/p>\n
One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns;<\/p>\n
Smoking hot, piping hot,<\/p>\n
Just come out of the baker’s shop;<\/p>\n
One a penny poker, two a penny tongs,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Three a penny fire-shovel, hot cross buns.”<\/p>\n
These buns, or spiced rolls, with a cross originally indented on the top,\u00a0now made of sugar frosting, were eaten by almost every inhabitant of England\u00a0on Good Friday morning. The custom probably originated nearly 600 years ago\u00a0when in 1361 at st. Albans Abbey one of the monks baked buns of this form as\u00a0gifts for the poor.<\/p>\n
At the time of Chaucer, about 1400, there were many beliefs about good\u00a0luck and good health associated with hot cross buns. Unlike common bread, they\u00a0were supposed to keep a long time without mold. They were grated into medicines,\u00a0used as charms against shipwreck, for keeping rats out of the grain, and as\u00a0good luck talismans,the way American negroes cherish a rabbit’s foot.<\/p>\n
Easter has always been a time of rejoicing, and strange as it seems to us\u00a0today, some of the playfulness and jollity that usually goes with rejoicing\u00a0was once carried on in the church itself. At one time a kind of Easter game\u00a0was played in the choir by the clergy. It may even have been played with eggs.\u00a0In the records of Chester Cathedral in England is found this interesting account: “The bishop and dean took eggs into the cathedral and, at certain stages\u00a0of the service, engaged in an egg-tossing match with the choristers.” In the\u00a0course of time these games were withdrawn from the sanctuary and became popular\u00a0egg-throwing and egg-rolling games on the village greens.<\/p>\n
Several authorities maintain that it is an old Easter custom that accounts\u00a0for the origin of pariSh houses, the sOCial halls that now adjoin so many\u00a0churches of all faiths. An important festive event of Easter 500 years ago\u00a0was the Easter Church Ale, a distribution and drinking of ale after the principal\u00a0Easter service, the money thus derived being used for repairs to the\u00a0church fabric. It is not hard to understand how these church ales degenerated\u00a0into disorderly affairs, so that they had to be put out of the church\u00a0itself. As-a result church houses were built or rented adjoining the church,\u00a0and were equipped with kitchens and dishes. Some of those houses became taverns\u00a0but the majority became the pariSh house or social hall for the church community.<\/p>\n
Allover the united States, and in many parts of Europe, the Easter service\u00a0is the occasion of popular services, held on some convenient hill. This\u00a0is the outstanding Protestant contribution to Easter. It has no part in the\u00a0historical liturgy of the church, but is a popular expression of the people.<\/p>\n
Some deep seated instinct of devotion drives modern man out of his comfortable\u00a0bed into the dim light of early morning to herald the risen Christ.<\/p>\n
Whether or not you have been to church today, you cannot escape the\u00a0mighty significance of Easter. The new life which the risen Christ brings to\u00a0man is not just ordinary, biological life. The gift of Easter is not mortal\u00a0life, but spiritual life. And this gift comes as the fruit of death. The passage\u00a0from Good Friday to Easter Sunday is the passage from the gloom of\u00a0death to the dawn of real life.<\/p>\n
To admit that desperate clinging to one’s mortal life is a futility and\u00a0an illusion seems complete violation of common sense. It looks like the end\u00a0of faith and hope alike. But what did the Master say? “Except a grain of\u00a0corn fall into the ground and die, it remains alone; but if it die, it brings\u00a0forth much fruit.” “Whosoever would save his life shall lose it, and he that\u00a0loses his life shall find it.” The King of Kings is born in a manger. He dies\u00a0upon a thief’s cross. Then he rises from the tomb. Why? Because, by that\u00a0strange contradiction, he fulfills the seed time and the harvest, the setting\u00a0and the rising of the sun, the never-ending cycle of the seasons\u00a0in a word, he brings real, eternal life to man.<\/p>\n
Year: 1950<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #63, broadcast on April 9, 1950<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1153,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}