Easter Sunday

Do you know the origin of what we called The Easter Parade? In times past after the Catechumens were baptized in the church at the Easter Vigil they were paraded around the town dressed in their white garments. People lined the streets to celebrate the great day on Easter Sunday, the next morning. This is the origin of The Easter Parade. What about Easter bunnies and chocolate eggs? These symbols come from ancient pagan symbols. The Easter bunny comes from pre-Christian Germany when people worshiped the Teutonic God Eostra, the goddess of spring and fertility. Her symbol was the rabbit. We remember that lots of our Christian shrines and symbols borrowed and buried pre-Christian shrines and symbols. They Christianized them. Spring also symbolized new life and rebirth; rabbits and eggs were ancient symbols of fertility. Easter eggs represent Jesus’ resurrection, new birth. What do Easter rabbits have to do with nests? This came from the tradition of making nests for the rabbit to lay its eggs. (Don’t ask!) Eventually, nests became baskets and colorful eggs were swapped for chocolate and candies. If you own a Faberge egg now is the time to produce it. In the Christian Church Easter day is a day to rejoice. It marks the Resurrection of Jesus from the Dead. It is also the end of the great Lenten fast. We can go out again in the evening. We can go to the movies and dances again. Time to celebrate. The universal Church rejoices that our faith in Jesus has been proven. We thought Calvary was the end. We thought it was all over. The sight of Lazarus rising from the dead was something to behold but this is something completely different. Conspiracy theories suggest that maybe grave robbers took the body. Nobody has come forward to claim it. If they took the body and produced it later that would definitely squash the followers of Jesus into submission. Their journey of faith in Jesus would have become a great embarrassment. Instead, they look upon His words again and in hindsight recognize that Jesus foretold this event. Destroy this Temple and in three days it will rise again. He must have been talking about Himself. It is all so mysterious and supernatural. We can’t understand it. The blending of human and divine is too much to understand. All we are asked to do is believe it is so. Is that enough for you? Our atheist friends would have a field day condemning us. They would call us a bunch of idiots for believing such nonsense. It is so easy to be an unbeliever because you don’t have to prove anything. It is so hard to be a believer because we can’t prove it. We walk by faith. We believe in the Lord Jesus. He has walked with us thus far. Let Him walk with us the rest of the way as well.