It is Easter Sunday. Across the Christian world the phrase, “Christ is Risen” is met with the response, “Christ is Risen Indeed!” Around the world, these words echo and on this day Vigils were kept and people are in church, no small number of whom only go to church on this day.
But what does this day really mean? Yes, of course, Christ was not in the tomb and not dead. Yes, the women found the empty tomb and they told the men. Yes, they were confused and fearful. But why bunnies and eggs? A cute Scottish commercial is going around these days and the young daughter asks that specifically, why a bunny? She then asks “is it in the Bible?” Dad is caught trying to explain the bunny and the chocolate.
Bunnies? Chocolate? And, of course the best, chocolate bunnies. This day, unlike Christmas, is specific because of the Passover celebration referenced in the New Testament. Spring is the time when the world re-awakens. It is the time of Oestra from older pagan religions. For the Jews, it is the time of extreme sacrifice and sudden freedom. Bunnies represent the older tradition of spring and reproduction. Eggs, those are from the Seder meal, when Jews remember Passover and eggs represent a new beginning, with all of the hope that goes with a new birth.
I want to add another idea, taken from my contemplative readings and from living out contemplative life. Merton speaks of Easter being a daily celebration found in the Liturgy of the Mass, where Christ is “crucified”, Christ rises from the dead, Christ ascends to Heaven. For all of us who choose this Christian faith, Easter should be a daily celebration. We go to bed, the time of “sleep” represents being dead, and when we awaken, that is our Resurrection and then our day is lived in the company of the Holy Spirit. The entire life cycle in every single day.
What would your day to day life, or mine, be like if we celebrated life like it was Easter every day? I am trying to do that and I discover that if I celebrate my daily resurrection, I want to celebrate the resurrection of every other person in the world. We each get to start over, with a clean slate every day. That is the meaning of Resurrection. That is Easter.
TMM