What does Easter Mean?

(taken from Andrew's magazine section of April 2010)

I remind you of the origin of the name ‘Easter.’  It is uncertain but according to the Venerable Bede, the monk historian of the 8th century, it is connected with ‘Eostre’, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring and fertility – hence, eggs.  As the date of Christmas was probably moved from September to December in order to supersede and extinguish the Roman feast of Saturnalia, so it seems the Christians rejoiced that Our Lord’s resurrection happened at Passover time and so also superseded and extinguished Easter … at least to some extent!  We still call the Festival ‘Easter.’  I would like to call ‘Resurrection Day’ but we’re too late for that!  A final point on this – it is the same God who raised Jesus who also gives Spring and fertility.

You may have noticed that when I quote other people’s writings in this magazine a person I often quote is the late Dr Austin Farrer.  He made a deep impression on me when I was a student at uni and listened to him preaching.  The following is part of what he has written about the resurrection of Jesus:

Christ in glory is the heart of heaven, and it is difficult to see how those who leave the life to come an open question can be Christians at all.  If Christ is not now in glory, then this is a Christless world and God is a Christless God and we are Christless men.

Nothing is plainer in the faith of the New Testament than the ties attaching Christians to a living Christ. Because he is beyond the death we still have to face, our union with him is union with an achieved immortality.  By dying, Christ not only made a supremely generous sacrifice, both overcoming enmity, and reconciling sinners to God; he also took the decisive step into that better state of being which lies beyond death.  To grow up was good, to die was better; better, if only one could die right.  Sinners die into death, but Christ, strong in the power of God, dies into better life.  By communion with him, even in this present world, we plant a foot on the risen and spiritual state.  Being incorporate with Christ, we are not only incorporate with the Son of God, we are incorporate with a man who has reached the goal of creaturely existence.  Christ the infant was a less visible expression of divine sonship than Christ the man; and Christ the man of flesh and blood a less expression than Christ transfigured.

This annexing of an earthly fellowship to the heavenly state was begun when Christ, risen from death to glory, visited his surviving friends.  Nothing like it ever has happened, or can happen – that the heart of heavenly being should visit earth, to leave on earthly senses the stamp of heavenly substance.  No thoughtful Christian can allow the resurrection to be placed in one category with any other class of events, any more than he can allow God to be placed in one category with any class of beings.