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I want to start an Easter Thread for this week. What does Easter mean to you?How has focusing on the true meaning of Easter helped you and your family?How can you find ways to make Easter in your ward not feel just like any other Sabbath Day?If I can share my thoughts this Easter season, I’d like to share my focus on a brighter future filled with hope. To me, that is what Easter is about. Because I believe the Lord was risen, and lives today, I have hope for a brighter future, for moving beyond my sins of my past, or the bad experiences I’ve had to go through, and have faith that as I look to my God, the past falls behind me.
One pastor wrote his impressions of what God would tell us on Easter:
Quote:My children, forget your failures, your guilt and everything that once
happened to you. I live, and you should be living too. Every negative issue of
the past is disposed by My accomplished works.
Now it is your turn, to do My works. So, forgive each other, encourage each
other, serve each other and accept one another, just like I accepted you.
So long ago, I have forgiven My Peter his failures and have made right all
that was wrong with him. And just like that I will now do the same for you.
My child, you do not have to become desperate about your past failures.
Get up, the time of My grace has dawned. The time of your healing and
reconstruction has long come about. Your wounds have healed since long,
you only have to rid yourself of the old bandage and plaster cast.
You are fully healed by My wounds, says the LORD.
Rid yourself of your images, your impressions and viewpoints of old.
I AM RISEN, says the LORD. A new age has dawned for you.
I love you all for your friendship. Thank you for your examples of struggling to keep finding peace.
Please share your Easter thoughts as you think about it throughout this week.
:angel: Pres Monson said Quote:“We laugh, we cry, we work, we play, we love, we live. And then we die. …
“And dead we would remain but for one Man and His mission, even Jesus of Nazareth. …
“With all my heart and the fervency of my soul, I lift up my voice in testimony as a special witness and declare that God does live. Jesus is His Son, the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh. He is our Redeemer; He is our Mediator with the Father. He it was who died on the cross to atone for our sins. He became the firstfruits of the Resurrection. Because He died, all shall live again.”
Hi Heber, I also appreciate connecting with people here & supporting each other & sharing perspectives.
:thumbup: To me, Easter’s symbolism is similar to the Christmas story, except the 2nd birth.
IMO, Baby Jesus represents our first births… all must be born of water (amniotic fluid)… & spirit.
Jesus in Gethsemene, the Cross & Resurrection represent being born of the spirit, which seems to be a repetitive life-long pursuit!
We’re spiritually “born again & again & again…” “Line upon line” (which is usually about all I can handle).
It seems there are what some call “quantum leaps” of learning the gospel (good news) – maybe someone inspires us to open our heart because we feel they really care, or maybe we have a huge wake up call somehow…
There comes a time when we are ready for more truth & don’t have to hide in comfortable illusions (the veil) as much.
This is the labor of Mary, Jesus’ pain in Gethesemne & the Cross… almost like a death of illusions that no longer work, confronting the tendency & potential for evil in all humanity, including us, which we try to deny.
Like peeling an onion, layer after layer, we’ll heal ourselves & be better able to understand & express compassion for others.
Then, spiritually, we feel like after a long cold bleak winter, blooms start to appear & spring is here – new birth! Resurrection!
On a lighter note:
“Spring is nature’s way of saying ‘Let’s party!’ – Robin Williams
Featherina wrote:To me, Easter’s symbolism is similar to the Christmas story, except the 2nd birth.
Great thoughts!
Wow, a deep post on Easter meaning and a quote by Robin Williams, all in the same post!! 2 points for Featherina!
Easter GamesNo one is exactly sure when the tradition of hiding eggs on Easter Sunday began, but there is a Medieval story told to children that rabbits, another fertility symbol, laid eggs in the grass. Christians in southern Germany added the practice of hiding eggs in difficult to reach places, often putting obstacles before the hiding spots. The obstacles represented the Stations of the Cross, or the trials of Jesus on his way to crucifixion. A favorite hiding place was among thorns, symbolizing the crown of thorns placed on Jesus’ head.
Egg rolling may have Egyptian roots, but many Christians interpret it as rolling the stone away from Christ’s tomb.
Heber13 wrote:Egg rolling may have Egyptian roots, but many Christians interpret it as rolling the stone away from Christ’s tomb.
I just love the process of taking pagan festivals and traditions and apologetically trying to equate christian significance to them…Eastre is probably related to Ashtoreh, the fertility godess. Bunnies, eggs, bright colors are all part of le sacre du printemps/the rite of spring — the fertility festival, in earlier times full of passion and orgies — temple prostitutes to celebrate the fertility godess.
Maybe there was a rationale in the pagan festivals. Rebirth of a the dead god/hero is reminiscent of the rebirth of life after the winter. all of this is related.
If rebirth is a good thing, then to be renewed in faith, in life, in the light of the gospel, I’m ok with the pagan festival symbols. they’re fun — but they are not significant, not in the least.
The real greeting after the resurrection was “He is risen”, and the reply was “Risen indeed”. This is the significance. If that means that life is eternal after life, great. The more significant meaning is “he lives”, meaning something deep and personal in this life, and not just for the next. The result of the resurrection is eternal life, to be shared not just after death, but in this life itself, day by day being one with God and Christ through the spirit. “He lives” means that this simple relationship is possible, that it is as easy to give heed to the spirit and live as it was for nephi and his family to follow the liahona.
The truth is that He Lives in you and in me, right here, right now.
he lives, means that my life, guided by the liahona and not bound by an iron rod, can be full of wonder and joy as I discover, line upon line, the deeper meaning of the gospel as I journey in the Way.
Thanks for this post, Heber. Rather than try to re-create my feelings about Easter, I’m going to quote from a post I wrote two years ago and provide a link to another one I wrote four years ago (with a very brief quote from it). Frankly, the second one (to which I’m going to provide the link) is one of my favorites from my personal blog. First, from two years ago:
“Honoring the Cross as Mormons”Quote:It only was at the end of his time on the cross that Jesus declared, “It is finished” – just before he “gave up the ghost”. Iow, it only was after the cross that the Atonement was complete – that Jesus fulfilled his own command to “be ye therefore perfect.”
I honor Gethsemane, but when we ignore Golgotha we worship an incomplete, partially developed, imperfect Savior and Redeemer.There have been any number of pronouncements in the history of this world that carried special significance for those beyond the people to whom they were addressed. Among them, within just our Christian heritage, are the following:
Quote:“Multiply and replenish the earth.”
“Moses, my son.”
“For unto us a child is born.”
“Thou art blessed among women.”
“This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear him.”
“It is finished.”
All of these have grave import, but the greatest pronouncement in the history of the world might be simply:Quote:“He is not here, for he is risen.”
I simply add my voice here and state, with my own conviction, that, in a very real and powerful and important way:
Quote:He can be here, for he is risen.
From four years ago:
“It Is Finished: Death on Easter Sunday”( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2008/03/it-is-finished-death-on-easter-sunday_9863.html Quote:Prophets extolled the importance of His birth and life; they stressed the deliverance He would bring. He would justify the brutality of their former oppression by establishing peace and mercy and power. He would reclaim their rightful place in the kingdom of their God, humbling once and for all those who had reviled and scourged and persecuted them as they awaited their great day of glory. They still wait, nearly two thousand years later, since Jesus of Nazareth failed to fulfill their expectations so utterly and completely. Easter Sunday did not bring them joy and peace and deliverance; it brought them only more oppression and misery and separation and death.
What then of Easter Sunday – of a sealed tomb and a sobbing, despondent discipleship? Amid their continuing pain and terrible turmoil, amid the persecution and upheaval that would not end, how could they possibly find peace and joy and hope? They found it in the following pronouncement – one of the simplest, most concise statements in all of recorded history:
Quote:“He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. ” (Matthew 28:6)
Thanks Ray. I needed to read those. Wayfarer, interesting background on those festivals. It seems the same for Chirstmas and Easter and other holidays, pagan traditions that start to take symbolic meaning from those with imagination.
Good thoughts. I have more thoughts on Easter as I have been studying. I will share more later.
For many years, I’ve been having a hard time emotionally connecting to or finding meaning in cultural holiday celebrations. It seems like there’s very little religion in them anymore. If they were actually religious holidays and not just celebrations of post-modern consumerism, I think I could find a way to still be happy about them. All the other hype and nonsense is so distracting to me. I hate Christmas more and more. Not only does December mark the start of the high-stress busy period for me in my career, but the added economic pressure of buying presents for a large family of kids bums me out. I am such a Grinch… I don’t ruin the holiday for others, but for me personally it’s generally an emotional low point in the year.
Brian, fwiw, I understand what you’re saying. We didn’t do Easter eggs this year (seriously, Easter eggs??), and we didn’t buy new dresses for the girls, like we have in the past. I was able to be home for the weekend, and we spent a lot of time just being together and enjoying the family without complication. It was a wonderful change. I also talked with my wife in January and told her I want to change radically how we approach Christmas this year. We talked about all the money we have spent on gifts and how almost none of it has gone to help those who need help the most. We are going to get each kid one moderately priced gift and work as a family to identify who we can help and how, including much more non-monetary service.
In a lot of ways, Easter is my favorite of all the mainstream festivals. I like it because it celebrates rebirth and spring, and is less commercialised and grungey than Halloween or Christmas. Like a good Mormon, I tend not to focus on the crucifixion so much as resurrection and redemption, which I believe is more positive. I like Mayday too, which is basically an old Celtic festival (Beltane) before the socialists and “the workers” took over…
😆
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