Blue Heaven - Why the Sky is Blue
Easter is perhaps the most important of all Christian feasts.
It celebrates the resurrection of Christianity's Lord and founder Jesus Christ: an event alleged by Christianity that has validated His message of hope and salvation through faith in Him.
Christians take pride in asserting that Jesus Christ is the only Person documented in all of history to have risen from the dead.
Conservative Christians usually welcome the onset of Easter with a sunrise service to formally end a preceding week-long observance of Holy Week, which focuses on the crucifixion and death of Jesus.
Easter always occurs on a Sunday.
This fundamental detail in itself is considered an evidence to the truth of Jesus' resurrection.
The Bible states that it was "on the first day of the week," "after the Sabbath, at dawn" (Matthew 28:1) "while it was still dark" (John 20:1) when the first evidence of the resurrection was found: the empty tomb.
It was at this time when Mary Magdalene came face-to-face with the angels who proclaimed that "He has risen" (Mark 16:6).
In the evening of this same day, Jesus appeared to His disciples (John 20:19).
Based on these details, it is an established worldwide Christian tradition to begin celebrating Easter with a dawn service.
At dawn, thousands of Roman Catholics gather on the grounds of St.
Peter's Basilica in the Vatican to listen to the Pope's Easter message, addressed to the entire Christendom.
This special message is beamed via satellite all over the world, which Catholic churches in the other parts of the globe can record and later share to their congregation when they gather.
After the dawn service, when the sun now shines brightly in the morning sky, as soon as the families leave the church doors, the "Easter fun" begins.
Continuing in the spirit of celebration, communities engage in egg-hunt games wherein painted eggs purposely hidden in designated places are to be gathered, usually by children.
Where the egg makes its significance in Jesus Christ's resurrection is a challenge for Bible scholars.
According to Church history, Dark Age Christianity came to a point of tolerating the old tradition of its converts, in the same way as the Persians and the Romans, centuries before Jesus, allowed the Jews to continue living life according to their culture.
The Church in the Dark Ages held fast to the dictum not to take away from her converts what they cherished prior to Christianization.
Instead, the Church adopted whatever could be closely related with Christian equivalents.
The mother-and-child cults of Europe and the Near East, for example, became the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus; many pagan gods with their specific roles were replaced with the saints; celebrations like the winter festival that occurred in December 25 became Christmas, and the spring festival was absorbed as Easter.
Incidentally, not even the word "Easter" can be found in the Bible.
It instead comes from either one of two pagan deities: the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, who descended on the earth in a mighty elaborately decorated egg; or an Anglo-Saxon goddess of the dawn named Eoster.
In spite of the known association between the decorated egg and the Babylonian Ishtar, it is not known for certain whether the Babylonians celebrated the goddess with decorated painted eggs.
The ancient Egyptians and the Persians, however, did during their spring festival-and the Christian Easter is a spring festival.
Another pagan import to Easter is the Easter hare, the season's Santa Claus.
Again, how the hare exactly relates to the Resurrection, and to the eggs of this festival will be a frustration any Bible scholar if he tries to research it in the Bible.
The hare, being a prolific breeder, has been a symbol of fertility.
According to the English monk and writer Bede (c.
672-735), the month-long Eostre celebration involved hares and eggs.
It was held in the month of April and continued to be observed until tenth century A.
D.
Because of these "paganizations," there are Christian groups today that have set off renaming Easter as Resurrection Sunday.
For them, it is a powerful day of remembering the foundation of the Christian faith, that had not Christ been raised, Christianity is "futile" (I Corinthians 15:17).
And at the same time, the celebration points the Christian forward when all Jesus' believers shall be raised from the dead, as He was.
This idea was summed up by St.
Paul in I Corinthians 15: "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep [verse 19].
But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him [verse 22].
"
It celebrates the resurrection of Christianity's Lord and founder Jesus Christ: an event alleged by Christianity that has validated His message of hope and salvation through faith in Him.
Christians take pride in asserting that Jesus Christ is the only Person documented in all of history to have risen from the dead.
Conservative Christians usually welcome the onset of Easter with a sunrise service to formally end a preceding week-long observance of Holy Week, which focuses on the crucifixion and death of Jesus.
Easter always occurs on a Sunday.
This fundamental detail in itself is considered an evidence to the truth of Jesus' resurrection.
The Bible states that it was "on the first day of the week," "after the Sabbath, at dawn" (Matthew 28:1) "while it was still dark" (John 20:1) when the first evidence of the resurrection was found: the empty tomb.
It was at this time when Mary Magdalene came face-to-face with the angels who proclaimed that "He has risen" (Mark 16:6).
In the evening of this same day, Jesus appeared to His disciples (John 20:19).
Based on these details, it is an established worldwide Christian tradition to begin celebrating Easter with a dawn service.
At dawn, thousands of Roman Catholics gather on the grounds of St.
Peter's Basilica in the Vatican to listen to the Pope's Easter message, addressed to the entire Christendom.
This special message is beamed via satellite all over the world, which Catholic churches in the other parts of the globe can record and later share to their congregation when they gather.
After the dawn service, when the sun now shines brightly in the morning sky, as soon as the families leave the church doors, the "Easter fun" begins.
Continuing in the spirit of celebration, communities engage in egg-hunt games wherein painted eggs purposely hidden in designated places are to be gathered, usually by children.
Where the egg makes its significance in Jesus Christ's resurrection is a challenge for Bible scholars.
According to Church history, Dark Age Christianity came to a point of tolerating the old tradition of its converts, in the same way as the Persians and the Romans, centuries before Jesus, allowed the Jews to continue living life according to their culture.
The Church in the Dark Ages held fast to the dictum not to take away from her converts what they cherished prior to Christianization.
Instead, the Church adopted whatever could be closely related with Christian equivalents.
The mother-and-child cults of Europe and the Near East, for example, became the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus; many pagan gods with their specific roles were replaced with the saints; celebrations like the winter festival that occurred in December 25 became Christmas, and the spring festival was absorbed as Easter.
Incidentally, not even the word "Easter" can be found in the Bible.
It instead comes from either one of two pagan deities: the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, who descended on the earth in a mighty elaborately decorated egg; or an Anglo-Saxon goddess of the dawn named Eoster.
In spite of the known association between the decorated egg and the Babylonian Ishtar, it is not known for certain whether the Babylonians celebrated the goddess with decorated painted eggs.
The ancient Egyptians and the Persians, however, did during their spring festival-and the Christian Easter is a spring festival.
Another pagan import to Easter is the Easter hare, the season's Santa Claus.
Again, how the hare exactly relates to the Resurrection, and to the eggs of this festival will be a frustration any Bible scholar if he tries to research it in the Bible.
The hare, being a prolific breeder, has been a symbol of fertility.
According to the English monk and writer Bede (c.
672-735), the month-long Eostre celebration involved hares and eggs.
It was held in the month of April and continued to be observed until tenth century A.
D.
Because of these "paganizations," there are Christian groups today that have set off renaming Easter as Resurrection Sunday.
For them, it is a powerful day of remembering the foundation of the Christian faith, that had not Christ been raised, Christianity is "futile" (I Corinthians 15:17).
And at the same time, the celebration points the Christian forward when all Jesus' believers shall be raised from the dead, as He was.
This idea was summed up by St.
Paul in I Corinthians 15: "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep [verse 19].
But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him [verse 22].
"
