Another Easter. This time around it is very early, in fact the second earliest possible date. The date was fixed in 325 CE by the Council of Nicea. The dispute that demanded a solution was not about Easter. It was about Passover. Some held that Passover should be observed along with the Jewish festival whose date would vary from year to year. Others wanted the same day every year to commemorate the Passover observed by Jesus. The Council Fathers took the second view. Then the question arose how to fix that every year. And it was decided that the Sunday after the first Full Moon following Vernal Equinox would be observed as Easter and the Passover would be observed the preceding Thursday. Now the Vernal Equinox is on March 21. This year the Full Moon was also on the same day. And it was a Friday. Therefore the Easter fell on March 23. The earliest date that Easter may fall on, according to the Gregorian calendar, is March 22 and the latest April 25. The last time Easter came on March 22 was in 1818 CE. And the last time it fell on the last possible day was in 1943. The respective dates in future ,nearest to us, would be 2285 and 2038 respectively. The next time Easter falls on a March 23 would be only in 2160 and it is very unlikely that anyone alive this Easter would live on to celebrate that! Thus there is some historic significance for this Easter. And yet all Christians did not celebrate this Easter together. About a tenth of Christians still follow the Julian calendar and their Easter this year comes much later, some time in April. Of course there are years when the two coincide but generally it is different for the church in India and the churches in Africa, the Mediterranean, the Middle East (my own church observes the calendar differently in India; elsewhere we follow the Julian calendar still)and Eastern Europe including Russia. In India also we had two dates until 1953 when the majority of churches in India switched calendar.(Even now there is a small group around Trichur who follow the Julian calendar).

Easter is the day when Christians commemorate the unique event of Christ’s Resurrection. It is the most significant day in Christian theology because without Easter there would have been no Good Friday. On an average about 3000 people used to be crucified every year for various offences. That included brigands, Jewish revolutionaries, people who created grave disorder in society through their words and deeds. Jesus would have made no difference. At the most Jesus may have found a mention in some contemporary writing , like that of Josephus Flavius. Yet the Friday would not have been known as being GOOD had there been no Easter. In other words it is the Easter-event which made the particular Friday-Crucifixion significant. Some of us may have noticed a subtle difference in the Cross as used in different churches. Roman Catholic, especially Latin, churches usually have a crucifix while the Oriental and Eastern Christians have plain Cross. This is because the Oriental theology adds emphasis to its essence by removing the body from the Cross. It is not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with the Crucifix, any more than with the portrayal of Infant Jesus or Jesus at the Last Supper. It is just a question of emphasis. (Incidentally a similar emphsis/deemphasis may be noticed in regard to Mary the Mother of God. The Oriental churches do not encourage a picture of Mary without the Infant. Nor a picture with Joseph in: no Holy Family pictures for them just as they have just one isolated church dedicated to St. Joseph. This is not because they have anything against Joseph. They are just emphasizing the Virgin Birth and Perpetual Virginity. And Mary’s picture is always with the Infant to remind us that her importance is derived from the child she bore.

Be that as it may. How do we see Easter? Our understanding of Easter is conditioned by our preconceptions. As for the Passion, Christmas and Ascension the Bible gives different and differing versions regarding Easter also. I have grown up, like most Christians of course, learning a story which has no holes to fill, a story that has become consistent because the hollow spaces have been grouted over a period of centuries. In the Antiochean tradition the Gospel read on Good Friday on five occasions between 8 am and 4 pm are all knit together from the different evangelists but they read like a continuous narration. Likewise we have a continuous picture in our minds. We are inclined to believe that all the events of Passion and Easter could have been videotaped if only the technology was available two thousand years ago. However there are a lot of individual Christians who are perturbed by the inconsistencies and the apparent contradictions of the Gospel narratives. If you put the factuality of the event as more important than the centrality of the experience such souls may find it harder to believe. However I believe what I have been taught but to me the Easter- experience is more important than knowing who rolled away the stone and when or who discovered the vacant tomb first and how. I am not for a moment suggesting that you need not believe in the physical Resurrection. What I am trying to say is that I accept the story of the Good Samaritan without knowing his surname and that of the Prodigal son without learning his genealogy. I imbibe the spirit.

And what is the essence of the Easter spirit that I imbibe? The Easter-experience basically has two components for me: that Jesus lives, and that Jesus is Lord. The stone will be rolled away and we may still be gazing at the empty tomb without seeing Jesus who stands just behind us, and when we see we may not recognize him except as some odd gardener because our vision is marred by our earthly tears. Once you accept that Jesus lives, and is not to be sought among the dead, then we see him. Once we see Him we see his Lordship. That privilege of seeing Jesus casts a huge responsibility on me. I must tell the world that I have seen the Lord. Here comes the most challenging question. I may see Jesus, and I may recognize him as my Lord but when I rush out to tell the world that I have seen Jesus, and He lives on, will the world trust me? Not if we do not live Jesus. The churches as a whole, and the Christians as individuals , are strong counters witness to the Lordship of Christ, nay His very factuality. We are counterfeits and therefore He looks like one in our hands!

What is the answer? Jesus provided the answer during his public ministry by citing the image of a convict carrying his cross and following the centurion with no option except to follow without questioning. Total surrender, not to the Centurion of this world’s Roman Empires but to the Creator, the Almighty God. We should know the picture to grasp the truth. In Roman days when one was convicted IBIS AD CRUCEM he was tortured and teased of course but then led away with the cross burdening his shoulders. In some cases it was only the patibulum, the horizontal piece, and that was lighter than the whole cross, but burden it was in either case. And the convict had no choice but to follow. He could not stop when he wanted. He could not stop when he felt tired. He cannot have a glass of water if he felt thirsty. All decisions were to be of the Roman centurion. The victim had no freedom of choice. Jesus expects me to carry the cross and follow him until I am crucified to the world. And then He would raise me from the dead. Thus I become a witness to and evidence for the fact the Risen Jesus is Lord indeed.

This is the challenge that Easter poses. To the Christian it is of paramount importance because if Jesus did not rise there is no point in holding Jesus any higher than Confucius or Buddha. And to the non Christian also it is an invitation to experience God, in whatever manner he understands that: are we ready to leave behind the earthly image and be resurrected in divine essence? What of agnostics and atheists, I hear a challenge. Yes, for them too: a story about the kind of transformation of a victim into a victor that Easter tries to tell would make a kind of moral sense even to agnostics and atheists.

Easter eggs may have different fillings but fillings are manmade and the egg itself is divinely ordained (pardon the mixing in the metaphor!)