COVER STORY
A PERSPECTIVE ON
EASTER
By Bishop Andy C. Lewter, D. Min.
O
n the first Sunday in April of this year, the
Christian community will celebrate its annual Easter observance. As such, virtually
all churches will celebrate the resurrection
of Jesus over 2000 years ago. From a theological perspective, Easter ranks as the most important of all the
Christian holidays because it is act of the resurrection
that conquers sin and erases the estrangement of Adam
from God in the Garden of Eden. Because Easter doctrinally represents the redemption of man back to God,
as a result of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, Easter
is the most symbolic observance of man’s redemption.
From a secular perspective however, the images of
the “Easter Bunny”, colored eggs and jellybean candy
seems to dominate this early spring observance. The
question becomes how did these two powerful cultural
themes come together to form the most celebrated day
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| THE BISHOP | APRIL 2015
of the year, with the possible exception of Christmas.
The first observance as a “Holy Day” seems to have taken place in the second century AD. While it is certain
and true that neither Jesus, nor his early disciples designated a day for the celebration of his resurrection,
primarily because early Christians assumed that Jesus
would return during their earthly lifetime, making the
celebration of such quite unnecessary, it is quite clear
that by the mid second century the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection had become a well established practice. The ecclesiastical historian Socrates Scholasticus,
not to be confused with Socrates of Greek antiquity,
identified Easter as the perpetuation of church culture.
One of the interesting items regarding Easter is that it is
a moveable feast” meaning that it does not occur at the
same time each year, such as Christmas, December 25th.