"Easter" is almost upon us again -- may be over before most of you see this. Many of us will spend time talking about the "real meaning" of Easter, Jesus' resurrection from the dead. While doing this we may or may not bemoan all the "pagan" symbols that have become associated with the festival.

But have you ever thought about the origin of the name we usually give to the festival? Some of my sources attribute it to the name of a pre-Christian spring festival; some even give it as the name of an ancient goddess of spring. So on the one hand we are celebrating the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, but on the other hand we are calling the festival by the name of a pagan festival or goddess!

My mother never liked this. She always insisted on calling it "Resurrection Day." I'm slightly ambivalent myself. Whenever we make too much of an issue of peripheral matters, there is always the danger that people will focus on that and miss the main point we are trying to make (which is why I'm starting a new thread for this rather than adding it onto an existing thread where someone has referred to the day as "Easter"). If I can call it "Resurrection Day" without getting side-tracked, I do, but if someone else calls it "Easter" I don't correct them. After all, few if any today would actually be thinking of the pagan festival or goddess when they say it.

But how would it be if Christians were to start a movement to call it "Resurrection Day" rather than "Easter"? Do you think it would have any chance of success? What do you do yourselves?

And if we can get people to change the name of "Easter", maybe the next thing to do would be to find new names for the months of the year (many of them named after Roman deities), or the days of the week (all named after pagan gods, most of them Teutonic)! Well, it's a thought!

BTW, all this would only be necessary in English and a few other European languages. In Chinese (and China is usually considered a pagan country!), the festival is called "Fuk wut jit" (Resurrection festival), and the days of the week and months of the year are all referred to by number.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Answers

Ben....

As long as people are sincere.....what difference does it make??

Don't be so nit-picky.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Hello, Ben,

I am uncomfortable calling it 'Easter', but I do. When my children were young, I always emphasized that it was Christ's death and resurrection we were celebrating, not spring or bunnies or chocolate eggs.

The problem is, partly, that in the KJV, it is called 'Easter' in Acts 12:4. I see in my other versions that it is called 'after the'Passover', which is much more in keeping with a Christian observance.

We are in the world, but shouldn't be of the world. I would much prefer to call it 'Resurrection Day', but we, in this country, cannot even get our Supreme Court to allow prayer in schools, so I doubt that we'd ever get them to change that.

But Christians could keep to that.

Years ago, we went to Spain and got there on New Year's eve (with a Christian group) and were amazed that they obeserve Christmas in a much more authentic way than we do. There were creches everywhere, and they separated the gift giving from the remembrance of Jesus' birth ~ calling the birth remembrance 'Feliz Navidad', referring to the Nativity ~ and then having the "Wise Men' come around to the doors of everyone, where the children had placed their shoes outside the door, for the 'Wise Men" to place small gifts.

That was on the 'Twelfth Day of Christmas', January 6th. I know we criticize our Catholic friends, but that is a better way to observe Christmas than what we do.

In our family, we may change from calling it 'Easter' to calling it 'Resurrection Day'.

In Remembrance of what He did for us by dying on the Cross.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Benjamin, I am sorry I called you 'Ben'.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Amen, Danny. I think your point is well-put. We get upset over the word Easter, yet many preachers won't even be preaching on the Resurrection on Sunday. There is a Proverb that says, "Blessed is the man who sets aside a day and makes it holy to the Lord." I think that should be the guiding paradigm in this discussion.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Connie:

The problem here is with the guys who translated the KJV. The word in the Greek text is clearly the word "Passover". By the time the KJV was done, it was commonly called Easter; that is a poor reason for not bothering to translate the word. They completely dropped that ball on this one.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Danny,

Once again, I'm having trouble knowing if you are being sarcastic or sincere, since in other threads you criticised me for suggesting that we should give people credit for sincerity and then use that to get them to go a step further in sincerely studying and sincerely trying to apply Biblical truth, rather than attacking them for areas that they haven't yet "got right."

If you were serious, a serious answer. To a certain extent I agree with what you said, and already said so. I am used to communicating in several "flavours" of English, plus a couple of other languages.

(Besides the differences you may be aware of between British and American English, or Northern and Southern English in the U.S., I am surrounded here in Hong Kong with many other varieties. When some of our Filipina church members have to see a doctor about some serious problem, my wife often has to go to "interpret", because Filipino English and the Chinese English the doctors use is very different, and they don't understand each other without someone who understands both to help explain what the other means.)

I am somewhat of a purist in the language I use in my writing or in speaking to people I know will understand that kind of English. With others I use what I know they will understand. That means NOT using purely American idioms with Filipinos or Chinese. It does mean using words the way that they use them. (To most Filipinos, what we would call an "excuse" is an "alibi", and they don't always understand it if we say "excuse." To many of them, a "cassette", as in "cassette tape recorder" is not the tape but the machine, and the tape is a "cassette tape.")

As I tried to say in my original posting, when talking to MOST people I call the festival "Easter", and don't distract attention from my message by making an issue of the name.

Communication is most important, and I will even use bad grammar and use words in peculiar senses if that will best communicate. But what words we use are important, since the choice of words may also communicate, and may sometimes communicate things we don't intend. I didn't mean to be "nit-picky", but to propose the idea for consideration that we might communicate a clearer message about the meaning of "Easter" if we use a different word when feasible.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

And BTW, in case anyone didn't "get it", what I said in my original posting about also renaming the days of the week and months of the year was NOT serious. It was purely "tongue in cheek" -- but with the intention of showing that I do realise it is futile to try to resolve all of the cultural ambiguities of language. I do think though that taking a MODERATE stand on the name of "Easter" might enhance what we say about the real meaning of the day.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Sam Loveall,

Jesus celebrated Passover when he instituted Communion (Lord's Supper), but the Resurection was a few days later and deserves a separate name and remembrance. I recently participated in a Christian Passover presented by a Christian family of Jewish heritage that was very instructive, and pointed out how the elements of the Passover point to Christ, and how jesus used those elements to teach on the night he was betrayed.

The passover bread that is given special significance in saving Israel is the middle piece, which we can understand as the second person of the trinity. The cup after supper was known as the cup of redemption. As we went through all the events it was more clear how powerful the message was to 12 Jewish desciples (11 if you discount Judas).

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2000

I understand and agree. my point to Connie was simply that the KJV use of the word "Easter" had little to do with the greek word involved. I don't recall reading or hearing that the earliest church used any name other than Passover, no matter what further lessons (like the ones you describe) they brought to the table.

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2000

Ooops. Jesus obviously should have a capital J. It pays off to proof read before you "submit".

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2000