Easter is Coming I ...

Tuesday, March 27, 2012. What is the best way to understand some big celebration like Easter? What is the best way to develop an understanding which is not just a mirror of traditions and misunderstandings?

Easter in general perception …

What impression do we get about Easter? It is a time of holiday. Schools stop this week already on Friday. Kids go on holiday trips. Parents have tried to free themselves for some days and planned to fly somewhere or visit relatives. Easter seems to be a holiday period for everyone.

Easter is linked to eggs and Easter cards, usually taking up the new green which is starting in spring. Easter is early, usually, trees are still empty, but first flowers grow and blossom. Easter is a time of rising temperatures, where spring comes with might.

Traditionally, people started to celebrate spring one way or another. So is Easter just a spring celebration, as it is in public perception? How can we approach Easter and truly understand what it is about?

One step towards Easter …

I would like to do one step towards Easter by starting to give arguments why Easter is in spring and should be in spring. Of course, on a global scale it is always difficult to argue with seasons, they differ from place to place. But the message of spring is that there is new life after a long winter. The message of spring is that green is coming, that nature will come back and will blossom. There is a message in all of this!

Easter takes up our desire to find new life. We want to let old things go and gain new things. We want to get rid of failures and guilt. We want to gain a fresh start. Humans need such a fresh start again and again. Our life is full of things which are not ideal, and we need to clean up occasionally, we need to restore and rebuild. There is a deep insight into humanity here. Every human, man or woman, need this renewal as an important part of life. It is as deep in our soul as the night and the morning, sleeping and waking up!

We could say that when God thought about mankind, he knew our desire for a new beginning. He knew our need to be renewed. And he created Easter. And long before this, he prepared all his steps by creating the seasons, autumn and winter and summer and spring. He created day and night. He knew! Our environment is speaking the language of activity and pause, of growing things and breaking them up, of time of activity and time for renewal. This is one step towards understanding Easter … (Roland Potthast) ... more texts