Easter Traditions

Eggs.

One of my favorite Easter traditions that I have learned about along the way comes from the Czech Republic. According to our friends there, it is customary that boys are given sticks and switches with which to chase the girls and beat them. No joke. I'm not sure how long this fun lasts, but I'm almost certain that it is only fun for half the group. On Easter Monday, the men are allowed to spank women but the women are permitted to get revenge later on in the day by dousing a man with a bucket of water.

Good times.

In Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, children dress up as witches and go door to door collecting candy in exchange for decorated pussy willow branches. This tradition is a mix of pagan practice as well as the Christian practice of blessing houses with pussy willow branches. In Norway, the simply read or watch murder mysteries at Easter.

The Germans build massive bonfires called Easter Fires, and the Irish do something similar called the Paschal Fire which is rooted in both Celtic pagan traditions celebrating the return of the sun and Irish Christian history which re-enacts the fire St. Patrick built to challenge Irish paganism.

Before you get smug about how weird these other cultures are, we must remember that sitting on the lap of an over-stuffed Easter bunny and hunting eggs scattered all over the lawn is a fairly strange thing too. It's simply our prefered method of madness. When did children start sitting on the Easter bunny's lap and posing for pictures start anyhow? Is it the capitalistic venture of chubby, unemployed Santa's trying to make an extra buck? I'm not sure, but I think it's wierd.

A lot of the things we (and others) do around Easter really has nothing to do with the resurrection of Christ anyhow and is more tied into neo-pagan celebrations of the Spring Equinox. Sure, we come up with ways to relate yellow chicks and candy eggs and beating women into something deep and spiritual, but these traditions are usually a mix of Christian and pagan. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.

Every since Constantine ripped the date of the Christian celebration of the Resurrection from the Jewish calendar, our celebrations of Easter have been more or less a mix of pagan and Christian. Do these activities make our celebrations of the resurrection of Jesus Christ less significant? Less pure? Some might say so. Our Quaker brothers and sisters don't celebrate Easter although the resurrection of Christ remains of paramount importance to them. I'm not convinced that the Christian faith is a religion of dates and places anyhow.

Perhaps the mixing of cultural tradition with Christian celebration helps make our expressions of faith more indigenous, more tangible. For example, if lillys and chicks and eggs help a child to understand new life and the promise of eternal life from God, I can see that as a good thing. I'm still trying to figure out how beating women ties in, but give me time...

We know from history that the Celtic pagans of Ireland loved the sun and particularly the sunrise. The Celtic Christians also worshipped at sunrise quite often. Was this a carry-over of paganism or did they see the return of the sun each morning as the promise of new life and the return of Christ? Many Christians today continue this tradition with our sunrise services and their mantras of "If Jesus Christ could raise from the dead, you can raise from your bed!" I think there is something profoundly spiritual about the sunrise as nature screams of the glory of God!

It's when we remove Christ and his resurrection from our celebrations that we should be concerned. The Apostle Paul said that the resurrection of Christ is essential to our faith. "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is useless and so is your faith" (1 Corinthians 15:13,14). Every since his death, people have been trying to conceal his resurrection or prove that his body is still somewhere. They know that such a find would be the nail in the coffin of the Christian faith, and so many are desperate to find it.

I add my voice today to the chorus of the ages as we declare "He is risen. He is risen indeed!"

"Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"