What Easter means to me (Intro)

Note: This is the first in a series of 3 posts on what The John thinks Easter's all about.

Good Good whole wheat Friday today. Not sure if you've done much thinking about what makes the torture and death of an innocent man good, or worth vacation time,"Jesus was tortured and killed -go ahead, take the day off." Definitely not sure what it is that makes us suddenly crave chocolate ears and salad made from eggs. Perhaps its just a spring craving and it'll pass, ha, chocoate and eggs, I'm sure it will. But honestly, how have we allowed chocolate and bunnies to overshadow the life and death of God's son? When I say we, I guess I don't mean you or me or them. I mean us. Our culture. How have we done it? Time for a history lesson.

The early church grew up surrounded by zillions of pagan festivals all celebrating and commemorating their pagan gods. After awhile, some well meaning Christians decided that they should be festivaling too - especially since the God they worshipped was the one true God. This made sense that the early church said "sweet, lets do it."The best part of this decision, besides the hip slang, is they didn't feel the need to reinvent the festival wheel which is why they"borrowed" the ideas from their pagan neighbors and then reinterpreted the symbols through a Christian lens. For example, the ancient Roman's annual Winter Solstice Festival took place December 21 and celebrated the rebirth of their Sun God. They also decorated coniferous trees which symbolized fertility and new life. Ring any bells? Well, the church did the same with Easter.

Each Spring when the pagans would elevate eggs and bunnies to the status of "new life" the church did the same except they claimed the new life was found in the Ressurection of Christ. In fact, they did this with all the Easter traditions. Dyeing eggs? The pagans would dye them blood red to symbolize the new life that is found in spring. Blood and New Life. Hmm. Easter Bunny? Sadly the big guy can't be found in ancient cultures but the fact that Bunnies were held up as symbols of new life it's not a stretch that Christians have used them to help reign in the season of Easter. Easter is about the New life found in Christ. Ok, fine, but seriously, what's with the Easter egg hunt? Um, well. . .we're all on a journey to discover new life? Phew.

My point with all this is these traditions have been around for the better part of 1600 years and can actually be good, healthy, meaningful traditions. What's not healthy or good is how we've taken these symbols and created their physical counterparts so we can buy, sell and ultimately consume them. We've consumed the Holy, which to be honest, doesn't sound right. The truth is, the Bunnies and Eggs no longer point to Christ, so why continue to use them?

Perhaps our North American culture needs to hold a press conference and admit that "although in the past, bunnies and eggs had a high Christological significance, we feel moving forward, they'd be best served making us a boat load of money."

A good question for all of us to ask: What does Easter really mean to me?

So this is my Easter intro. I started off claiming I would give you a 3 part post on what I think Easter is about. Indeed I will. Today I will share what Good Friday means to me, tommorow I'll share what it means to wait on God and Sunday I'll conclude with a celebration of New Life.

So I guess this is going to be a 4 part series. This long intro is Part 1. I'll start a new post for Part 2 just to prevent this from becoming the longest post in the world. Don't worry, I'll post part two later today. Besides, I hear pins and needles are all the rage.

John