At the end of the service, we’re going to sing the hymn which is the title for my reflection today, “Lo! The Earth Awakes Again,” and because we’re Unitarians we like to make sure we agree with the words before we sing them, right? So this is your chance to be sure, ahead of time, and it should result in some really convinced singing, I hope! The theme of the song is that the cycle of the year ensures that winter will be transformed into Spring, that the dark cold days are over and only gladness awaits us, that we can be full of joy instead of grief, and our spirits can soar and sing. Wonderful sentiments, even if they’ve somehow become intertwined with the Christian message of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and all the mixed emotions that concept awakens in us – or perhaps because of the mixed emotions. Perhaps it’s the blend itself which is the most creative aspect of the holiday – the struggle to bring it all together.
Today's service is certainly a blend. Many of us feel, intuitively, that it's right in the connection, or the blend, rather than in the separate elements of this secular and religious, pagan and Christian holiday, that the deepest meaning is to be found. There may be meaning in the most confusing aspects of the holiday. For example, if it's about Jesus, where do the eggs come in? And why are they brought by the Easter Bunny, when eggs are usually produced by hens, not rabbits? As you might expect, the connections are not just with Christianity and the story of Jesus' death and resurrection, but with many cultures worldwide. The word "Easter" itself simply means "Spring", so that leaves the cultural meaning wide open!
Creation and re-creation are the major themes of celebrations at this time of year. According to Chinese mythology, heaven and earth were created from the Great World Egg. Ancient Egyptian scriptures describe how the sun-god, Ra, breaks the shell of an egg as an act of creation. Greek mythology has Eros spring from a silvery World Egg, and Christianity sees it as a symbol of rising from the dead, in the way that all kinds of old pagan customs became overlaid with later Christian symbolism. In the western world, customs associated with eggs can be traced back to the early Middle Ages. It's said that peasants in some places had to pay an "egg rent", a payment in eggs for the lease of their land and sometimes also for their membership in the church, and this egg-rent fell due at Easter. By the early 18th century, the obligation had turned into the widespread custom of exchanging dyed and decorated eggs among family members and between lovers, too, like Valentines.
Easter eggs are at least as old as Valentines. Probably older than Christmas ornaments, and many other things that have become taken-for-granted as part of our culture. But is there any special connection with the Jesus story? Well, for Christians, the followers of Jesus who believe that he was and is the Saviour of the world, the Easter Egg symbolizes a very special kind of new life, the resurrection, or coming back to life, of Jesus. It can't be taken for granted anymore that everyone knows the Easter story, so let's just remind ourselves about it.
Jesus had the kind of ideas which were bound to get him into trouble sooner or later. Perhaps it would have been all right if he'd just kept quiet about what he thought, but it was quite the opposite. He went around his native country of Palestine, about 2000 years ago, telling everyone his weird thoughts about God loving poor people and sinners just as much as rich people and holy men, and saying that keeping every little religious rule wasn't nearly as important as caring about the people around you.
The trouble with this was that Jesus had a way of winning ordinary people to his way of thinking – but not the ones who had the power in the country. The powerful ones saw him as a nuisance who made their lives more difficult – just as the government today wouldn't like it if someone persuaded everyone else not to take politicians seriously at all. I don't think our government would do anything quite as drastic as they did to Jesus back then, though. At least, I hope not. They arrested him, and after talking it over for a little while, they decided to kill him. They didn't have a quick way of killing people in those days; they nailed him to a cross and let him hang there until he died. It was awful, probably just as awful as Mel Gibson’s movie shows.
You can imagine how terrible Jesus' friends felt. They really loved him and now he was gone. They felt very much alone. But after he died, some of his friends started spreading a strange story about him. They said that Jesus was alive again – that two days after he was killed by crucifixion he wasn't dead any more but was walking around again, even though his body had been buried in a cave after he died and sealed up. Well! This was quite extraordinary, but his friends were thoroughly convinced. A lot of them said they'd seen him, and some said they'd touched him and he'd spoken to them. Soon quite a number of people began to believe it, and they called themselves Christians. They said that what had happened was the biggest miracle ever – someone who was dead had come back to life again. That's not all. They said that because this had happened to Jesus it could happen to everyone who believed in him. They said that when people die, if they believe in Jesus they come alive again – not here on earth but in heaven, and they stay alive for ever. They said no matter what anyone did to them, they would be all right in the end, just as Jesus was alive even though he'd been killed.
The religion of Christianity has a lot of symbols. The main one is the cross, which reminds Christians of the fact that Jesus was killed because of his ideas and teaching. But Christians also use symbols from other religions, and from everyday life, too. At Easter, eggs as part of the Christian celebration. Christians are celebrating the fact that life is stronger than death, and the egg is the sign of life. Life comes from eggs; it comes from an egg in a hard shell, or from a seed in the cold hard ground, just as Christians believe Jesus came back to life from the cold hard tomb. An egg is a miracle, a seed is a miracle, like the miracle that Christians believe happened to Jesus at Easter. And I don’t have any trouble at all agreeing that the life that comes when the earth awakes again is a miracle. How could that life have survived underground – but it did!
I believe there’s meaning for old and young and in-between, for spiritual sophisticates and religious innocents, in the many elements of this secular and religious, pagan and Christian holiday, elements which come from all the ages of human history and are to be found not just in Christianity and the story of Jesus' death and resurrection, but in many cultures and times. I've heard that "Easter" was originally the name of a goddess, way back in prehistoric times, but there's a kind of chicken-and-egg quality about this, if you'll pardon the pun. As far as I can tell from my various reliable sources, the word can be traced back to the Indo-European word for "shining" or "dawn", which then was deified as the Germanic goddess of the dawn, who was worshiped at the Spring Equinox. The first Christian missionaries shrewdly combined their celebration of the resurrection with the older pagan festival honouring the goddess, so that Easter now means the whole Christian and pagan package, or any part of it you want to pull out. And they fit together so beautifully, the story of the coming-back-to-life of Jesus, and the coming-back-to-life of the earth. I can't imagine how they cope with this in Australia, where Easter, or Spring, is celebrated in the Fall. It must be even more confusing than singing "In the bleak midwinter" while catching some rays on the beach in high summer.
There's another element of Easter which we sometimes overlook, but which is integral to the Christian celebration, and that's Passover, the Jewish holiday which was celebrated a few days ago, which Jesus was celebrating with his disciples the night before he died, and which marks the beginning of the journey by the children of Israel into the Promised Land – another kind of coming-back-to-life, from slavery to freedom. Some time ago, I came across this poetic meditation by UU minister Lynn Unger, about the night of Passover, which once spoke to me in a time of need:
They thought they were safe that spring night, when they daubed
the doorways with sacrificial blood.
To be sure, the angel of death passed them over, but for what?
Forty years in the desert without a home, without a bed,
following new laws to an unknown land.
Easier to have died in Egypt or stayed there a slave, pretending there was safety in the
old familiar.
But the promise, from those first naked days outside the garden, is that there is no safety,
Only the terrible blessing of the journey. You were born through a doorway marked in
blood.
We are, all of us, passed over, brushed in the night by terrible wings ...
... that we might, at last, glimpse the stars, brilliant in the desert sky.
All these themes merge in our celebration of Easter today: the most ancient salutation of the dawn, of the life which returns with each new day, each Springtime, the ever-renewed struggle of oppressed peoples to move from bondage into freedom, the faith that these forces, of the dawn, the spring, the exodus, the resurrection, are worthy of our faith and our commitment. In the words of another UU minister, Mark Harris,
Is the resurrection real? If we believe in a creative power which shatters the icy tomb of winter with the life-giving miracle of spring, we have seen a resurrection. If we believe in a creative power which moves tens and then tens of thousands of people to cry against the injustices of soiciety, enabling the downfall of hatred and prejudice, then we have created a resurrection. If we believe in a creative power lying within each human breast which enables us to break the bonds of personal pain and know the hope of new tomorrows, then we have experienced a resurrection.
At Easter time ..... we celebrate the untold number of courageous individuals and groups who have sacrificed their lives to liberate others from oppression and create a more just and loving world. We celebrate the ability of the human heart to overcome personal tragedy or handicap and affirm once again the ability to love or excel when many others would have given up all hope. Easter celebrates the times of witnessing, experiencing and creating the resurrections of human life.
Perhaps the most critical part of the Easter message to Unitarian Universalists is the power within the heart of each person to bring life out of death. There is great undying potential buried beneath lifelessness and hopelessness. In the resurrection story there is both humiliation and death, but in the end also a new life of the spirit. For us it means confronting the deep wounds and scars we have suffered and then allowing ourselves to be transformed anew. When we are enslaved by bonds of sorrow or hate or greed, the experience of turning our lives in a new direction means we can forgive ourselves for imperfections. When this forgiveness occurs we are free to reach out and begin fulfilling lives of genuine human sharing.
... The central message of the resurrection ... is the human potential to overcome serious personal loss or failure and begin to live a more whole life. When we think of our earth's ability to regenerate itself, our social ability to join forces with others to overcome the human predilection for violence, and finally, our personal ability to recover from a seemingly empty or forsaken life, then the meaning of Easter can become powerful for [us]. We can make the "resurrection" a reality in our lives. It is I, you, and they who are risen from the dead.
This is what matters most about Easter for me. When I see with total delight the tiny early irises in bloom, the earth awakening again, it convinces me, every year, every time, that I and you and all of us can be born into new life. What a fantastic annual Easter message!
At Easter, Jesus takes his turn with the Easter Bunny, who's also a bit confused, bringing eggs which are usually produced by hens, not rabbits. It reminds me of the delightful little tale of the Sunday School teacher who was trying to prepare the children for the season. “What happens at Easter?” she asked. First child: "The Easter Bunny comes down the chimney." (No, no, no.) Second child: "We get to smash the pinata and all the chocolate eggs fall out." (Oh dear, no.) Third child: "We remember when Jesus was crucified by the Roman authorities for being a trouble-maker among the Jews and claiming a special relationship to God," (wow, this is more like it) "and then he comes out of the empty tomb and if he sees his shadow we have six more weeks of winter."
Easter is a confusing blend of fantasy and truth, myth and mundaneness, just as the reading from Jane Rzjepka suggested. There's rich meaning in the many elements of this secular and religious, pagan and Christian holiday, elements which come from all the ages of human history and are to be found not just in Christianity and the story of Jesus' death and resurrection, but in many and varied cultures and times. And the message is that love and living are stronger than hatred and killing. It’s the message that even the worst that can happen to us, the very worst, even suffering and dying, is not the last word. If the day when Jesus died can be called “Good” Friday, then our mistakes and cruelties and regrets and sorrows can all be transformed into something good, too. This festival of Easter is the celebration of the transformative power at the heart of the universe, the power which, in the words of our Universalist heritage, is saving everyone and everything, universally. A few years ago I found a poem which expresses this in an image from nature; it’s by Antonio Machado:
Last night, as I lay sleeping,
I dreamt – marvellous illusion! –
that I had a beehive here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs and sweet honey
from my old failures
Yes! The message of Easter is that our mistakes and failures and regrets and remorse can be made into something sweet and beautiful through the goodness which is at the heart of things. It happens, if we give up our resistance to it. And Easter Sunday is the day for celebrating it! This Easter Day, and every day, can be a resurrection for each one of us, if we will greet it with openness and love; it can be a celebration of life. Happy Easter, everyone!