True Meaning of Easter (Part 1)

Throughout my life, I’ve always known that Easter falls on a Sunday. I always took that to be similar to how Labor Day, President’s Day, and Memorial Day always lands on a a Monday. However, I never realized that even though Easter is always on a Sunday, however, the Sunday could be different. For example, Memorial Day is always the last Monday of May. So the date may change, but you know you’ll always get that Monday off either from work or school. And if your school or company doesn’t have that day off, you should make a big stink about how they are unpatriotic and how the government should send the leaders to Gitmo. Ok, that might be taking a little bit too far. But not by much. However, Easter is not like that. Did you know that Easter can appear in March? I don’t remember that happening, but apparently it has: on March 26, 1989, March 31, 1991, March 30, 1997. So how do they figure out when is Easter? Do they know the exact date when Jesus died and came back from the grave? Did the benevolent and future-thinking Church leaders devise some pattern with which they could predict Easter until Christ comes back? Or did they just make it up as each year appears? Maybe some of the early church leaders like Peter marked on their calendar, Jesus died on this date. After all, don’t they need a date to put on his grave? If Jesus did have a tombstone, can you imagine what would be on his tombstone? Maybe something like: “Here lies the Son of Lord and Mary. Born: Christmas Day. Died: Good Friday”. Well of course, he didn’t die, so that’s probably why there’s no grave for him. But I’m sure the stone carver must have been really mad because he wasted this perfectly good tombstone. I mean how many other people named Jesus was born on Christmas Day? Not too many I can assure you.
Well fear not, I have spared you the effort of typing it in Google. Here’s how the algorithm that the Church uses to celebrate Easter. Easter Sunday is the Sunday following the Paschal Full Moon (PFM) date for the year. Typically the PFM is March 20. The purpose of this complex algorithm is to maintain, for each Easter Sunday, the same season of the year and the same relationship to the preceding astronomical full moon that occurred at the time of his resurrection in 30 A.D. Basically, they wanted to preserve the “mood” of that event, rather than a strict “time”. Most likely because seasons change, and it would have been weird to have Easter when there’s snow on the ground or something. Although based on the latest weather I’m having here in sunny ole, umm… Afghanistan…, it’s more like winter than spring. (That’s a joke, and to understand it look to the left sidebar under “About Me” -me).
So let’s say it’s Easter Sunday now. You are in your best-dressed outfit, because, you know, you want to look good for God on the day He rose. How would he feel when he made all this effort to come back to life and you’re there in your jeans and that ratty t-shirt that you just refuse to get rid of. I always wondered why people wear their best on the “special holidays” (Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving). If they ascribe to the belief that God cares about what they wear, then shouldn’t they be wearing nice clothes every Sunday? What does God TiVo all the other Sundays and sets them aside so he can “listen to them later”? Anyway, you arrive at Church wearing your best suit or pinkest and frilliest dress, and suddenly your usual spot is gone! Now there’s these strangers sitting there, that you’ve never seen before. And since you normally go to Church kinda late, there’s no more room for you and you’re stuck in the overfill room, with all the other late people. From what rock did all these people crawl from? Don’t know them? Well, let me introduce you to the holiday Christians. These are people who believe in God, but only on the special days. The other days are spent sleeping in, watching football, or doing that special hoity-toity champagne brunch (essentially a regular brunch but they serve crappy champagne and charge an extra 10 bucks for it). No I’m not bitter at all just because I had to sit in an uncomfortable chair, listening to the sermon through a tinny speaker while the fan is broken in the overfill room because no one sits there except during times when the main sanctuary is full, which only happens on holidays.
But this day is not about your discomfort. It’s about Easter Eggs! Well, that’s what I had always associated with Easter when I was a kid. That and those delicious Cadberry Chocolate Easter eggs. I much prefer those to the traditional hard-boiled chicken eggs. I mean, think about it. On one hand you get milky chocolate with a sweet creamy filling and on the other you have a cold, jello-like white substance with a chalky yellow filling. Which would you rather have after a 10 minute intensive search for eggs at breakneck speeds while competing with other youngsters? As a kid, that was the highlight of Easter service. Sitting impatiently through the singing and Sunday School, I’m sure the teacher ended mercifully early when she realized that we were only marginally paying attention to her as our eyes roam all over the backyard looking for the likely hiding spots of those eggs. And it was a big production too. We all had to start in the room behind the glass door. Then she would say, “Ok, GO!” And off we went, pulling each other’s jackets as we all tried to be the first into the garden to search for those nasty eggs that none of us ate anyway. But, you know it’s not about eating, it’s about bragging that you found more eggs than any other.
As I grew up, my role changed, and it was just as much fun finding good places to hide the eggs than it was to actually seek them. I would delight in torturing the kids by placing some eggs in plain sight, but way too high for them to reach. We’d also stuff the eggs in narrow deep crevices where the kids’ grubby hands couldn’t reach them. However, some of them were smarter and used sticks and tools to get the eggs. I think that’s unfair, it robs me of my amusement! But here’s a tip of you plan on hiding eggs inside the Church… make sure you write down every place where you hide the eggs, because believe me, come a month later, the pastor and the facilities director will not appreciate it when the break room suddenly develops this fragrant odor of rotten eggs. Trust me, it’s not that fragrant.

And what else is important about Easter? Well wait til Thursday to find out!