The Meaning of Easter.
Happy Easter! All over the United States little kids are feeding mass-produced sugar products into their grubby mouths in honor of the Son of God. What better way to remember Christ's great sacrifice than by gorging on crap? Thank God that we have these traditions to celebrate the inevitable salvation of all true believers. Really... Nestle, Hershey's, Mars, Walmart, and Jelly Belly all thank you from the bottom of their chocolate-covered souls. Boil, color and hide the eggs. There's nothing cuter than a gaggle of little tykes on a chicken-abortion hunt. As you watch the kids frolic, bite the head off of a marshmallow peep and savor the sweet sensation of boiled animal skin, bones and sinew. Yum! Cows. Pigs. Horses. If Jesus turned water into wine, then surely it's a logical extension to make Gummy Bears out of our furry friends. That's certainly a better use for all of God's creatures than the manufacture of skin moisturizers (hydrolyzed collagen) for aging beauty queens.
Of course there is a far more serious side to the celebration of Easter. One thing that has always puzzled me is the floating date of its observance. The first attempt at setting the timing of the event occurred under the authority of Roman Emperor Constantine I, at the Council of Nicaea (325 AD). The council agreed that Easter should be on the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. But there were complications concerning the discrepancy between the lunar and solar years. Controversy ensued until 465 AD, when the Church adopted a method of determination developed by an astronomer named Victorinus. And then the switch to the Gregorian calendar (in 1582) eliminated some of the confusion in fixing the date. But the calculations of Eastern Orthodoxy churches still differ from Western Christian conclusions- which all means that it still remains a convoluted mystery to me.
The derivation of the name is much more compelling. The 8th-century English scholar St. Bede believed that it came from "Eastre" (sometimes spelled "Eostre"), the Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility. During the vernal equinox festival, eggs were painted to represent the sunlight of the new season, and rabbits were venerated as a symbol of fecundity. One can only imagine the pagan bacchanalia that sprung from such activities. The Saxons baked "hot-cross buns" to honor Eastre, the markings of which were meant to symbolize the moon's quarters (and later adopted by the Christians to represent the crucifix). The Greeks had their Persephone, who returned to the light of day after a period in the underworld. The Phrygians chose this time of year to wake their slumbering deity with music and dancing after the harshness of winter. And of course the connection to the Jewish Passover is obvious.
The credit for the "Easter Bunny" falls to the Germans. Theirs was called "Oschter Haws", and was said to visit homes during the darkest hours of Easter Eve. He was supposed to be delivering colored eggs for the children, but with the purportedly voracious sexual appetite of the rabbit, I think I'd have made sure he stayed away from my wife. I might be tempted to go all Elmer Fudd on his ass... ("Kill the wabbit. Kill the wabbit!). I'd make a jelly out of him.
I'm not even gonna get into the subject of "Maundy Thursday".
Of course there is a far more serious side to the celebration of Easter. One thing that has always puzzled me is the floating date of its observance. The first attempt at setting the timing of the event occurred under the authority of Roman Emperor Constantine I, at the Council of Nicaea (325 AD). The council agreed that Easter should be on the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. But there were complications concerning the discrepancy between the lunar and solar years. Controversy ensued until 465 AD, when the Church adopted a method of determination developed by an astronomer named Victorinus. And then the switch to the Gregorian calendar (in 1582) eliminated some of the confusion in fixing the date. But the calculations of Eastern Orthodoxy churches still differ from Western Christian conclusions- which all means that it still remains a convoluted mystery to me.
The derivation of the name is much more compelling. The 8th-century English scholar St. Bede believed that it came from "Eastre" (sometimes spelled "Eostre"), the Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility. During the vernal equinox festival, eggs were painted to represent the sunlight of the new season, and rabbits were venerated as a symbol of fecundity. One can only imagine the pagan bacchanalia that sprung from such activities. The Saxons baked "hot-cross buns" to honor Eastre, the markings of which were meant to symbolize the moon's quarters (and later adopted by the Christians to represent the crucifix). The Greeks had their Persephone, who returned to the light of day after a period in the underworld. The Phrygians chose this time of year to wake their slumbering deity with music and dancing after the harshness of winter. And of course the connection to the Jewish Passover is obvious.
The credit for the "Easter Bunny" falls to the Germans. Theirs was called "Oschter Haws", and was said to visit homes during the darkest hours of Easter Eve. He was supposed to be delivering colored eggs for the children, but with the purportedly voracious sexual appetite of the rabbit, I think I'd have made sure he stayed away from my wife. I might be tempted to go all Elmer Fudd on his ass... ("Kill the wabbit. Kill the wabbit!). I'd make a jelly out of him.
I'm not even gonna get into the subject of "Maundy Thursday".
posted by Merge Divide at 3:06 PM
2 Comments:
What's Moundy Thursday?
If is didn't know you better I'd say you made all that s**t up. I'd love to see some citations just to look them up myself.
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