Easter and the Resurrection of Christ: the greatest act of faith that created a religion

By rolling the stone which sealed the tomb of Jesus on Good Friday, the ancient witnesses of his execution will have thought that with this action the curtain of this drama was drawn. But no. We know, the story continues …

The Spanish term “Easter” comes from Latin: Pascæ which in turn comes from classical Greek: πάσχα (Pasja), an adaptation of the Hebrew: פסח (Pessa’h), which means “not” or “to jump”.

It means that Jesus will go through something, what? his own death. The evangelists Mark, Matthew, Luke and John describe the same thing at the time of the resurrection: The women worry about who will move the stone covering the tomb, and they see angels warning them of Jesus’ resurrection. But the Gospel of John adds another fact that other evangelists do not; as we can read in John 20:11, 18:

“Mary (of Magdala) remained crying outside, next to the tomb. Weeping, she leaned down to look inside and saw two angels dressed in white, sitting where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and one at the feet. They said, “Woman, why are you crying?” He replied, “Because they took my Lord and I don’t know where they put him.” Having said that, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she didn’t know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for? ‘ She thought he was the keeper of the garden and replied, “Lord, if you took it, tell me where you put it and I will take it.” Jesus said to her: “Mary”. She turned around and said, “Rabboni”, which means “Master”. Jesus said to her, “Free me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them: I am ascending to my Father, who is your Father; to my God, who is your God. Mary Magdalene left and said to the disciples: ‘I saw the Lord and he told me this.’ “

This event generated an infinity of sculptural and plastic manifestations in art, and is known in Latin as: “Noli me tangere” is to say: “Do not touch me”.

Here we see the fundamental role of a woman: María Magdalena and it is the first proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus. He thus became the apostle of the apostles.

That is to say Jesus came out of the tomb alive. He is alive, he has conquered death. There is a very popular song that is sung on these Easter days in many churches that could sum up the fact: “… from today death has been conquered / and our faith is a song for life. / Easter of the resurrection of Christ! / Passage from man to the life of God ”.

The entire account of Jesus’ passion and his own existence is a true fact. There are non-Christian authors who mention the life of Jesus and his trial, such as Flavius ​​Josephus in chapter 18, paragraphs 63 and 64 of his text “Jewish Antiquities” there is a passage traditionally called “Flavian testimony”, Pliny the youngest, tacit; Suetonius; the letter from Mara Bar-Serapion, Apolonio de Tiana, etc.

But the question of the resurrection enters the domain of the faith of Christians; so that We could summarize the oldest gospel, that of Luke, which he tells us that: “we were the grave and the body was not there” and that should be enough to believe.

Saint Paul, in the letter to Corinthians 15:12, 20, says: “Now, if we proclaim a Messiah raised from the dead, how do some out there say that there is no resurrection among the dead? dead? If the dead were not raised, neither was Christ raised. And if Christ was not resurrected, our preaching has no content, and neither does your faith. With this we become false witnesses of God, since we affirm that God raised Christ from the dead, even though he did not raise him, if it is true that the dead do not rise. For if the dead were not raised, neither could Christ be raised. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is useless: you continue in your sins. And, to put it bluntly, those who have fallen asleep in Christ are utterly lost. If our hope in Christ ends with the present life, we are the most miserable of all men. But no, Christ rose from the dead, being the first and the first of those who fell asleep. A man brought death, and a man also brings resurrection from the dead. “

Rafael Sanz tells us in his article “What happens in the resurrection: what happened there?” a very interesting reading on the fact of the resurrection of Jesus: “The resurrection of Jesus consisted in breaking the chains to go towards a whole new type of life, a life which is no longer subject to the law of becoming and dead, but is beyond that; a life that ushered in a new dimension of being a man. For it, the resurrection of Jesus is not an isolated event which one could ignore and which would only belong to the past, but rather it is a kind of “ decisive mutation ” (to use the word analogically, even if it is ambiguous), a qualitative leap. In the resurrection of Jesus a new possibility of being a man was reached, a possibility which interests everyone and which opens a future, a new kind of future for humanity. “

The resurrection of Christ it is above all the triumph of life over death, but not only bodily death but all kinds of death, as being: the death of the human being in his spirit, in his creative activity, in his full being as such. The resurrection of Christ marks that the human being is a living being for life and that no one has the right to transform him into a gray, monotonous, repetitive and routine being; In no case is the resurrection of Jesus the triumph of the creative capacity of the human being to give life, to overcome the chains of “death” and to be luminous beings who are guides of light for them. other.

Relationship with Pesach

As we have said, the resurrection has to do with life, so does the Jewish Passover. Remember Jesus was a pious Jew and that the Last Supper was the celebration of a Passover Seder. What is a Seder? These are the ritual meals that must follow an order (Seder) during the Passover celebrations. And what is celebrated on Passover? the liberation of the Hebrew people from Egypt after 210 years of slavery in Egypt. In the Torah, the Pentateuch of Christian Bibles, he reports that God sent ten plagues on Egypt to convince Pharaoh to let the people of Israel be free. But when he did not give in, he sent the exterminating angel to take the firstborn of the houses of Egypt, but he ignored that it is: He “jumped” on Jewish families who had marked their doors with lamb’s blood. We read in the book of Exodus 12: 1,13:

“And they shall eat thus: with their clothes, their sandals on their feet, and their staff in their hands. It will not be long before you eat it: it is a Passover in honor of Yahweh. During that night I will travel to the land of Egypt and kill all the firstborn of Egypt, the Egyptians and their animals; and I will show all the gods of Egypt who I am, Yahweh .In the houses where you are, the blood will have a signal value: when I see this blood, I will pass away, and the plague will not reach you when it strikes Egypt “

Passover is understood as “the passage to freedom for the people of Israel”. In commemorating Pesach, the idea of ​​victory and freedom are transmitted at the same time, that is, if oppression could be endured, we can also create bonds of freedom. During the Passover dinner, the “Haggadah” is read, which is the story of the liberation of the people of Israel. Almost always the smallest asks, “Why is tonight so important?” And the elder replied, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, and the Lord our God brought us out of there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.”

On these dates, it is forbidden to eat foods containing yeast and “matza” is eaten, which is unleavened bread. This unleavened bread symbolizes that when leaving Egypt, there was no time to wait for the bread to rise. Also, don’t miss the “keará” which contains: bitter herbs, an apple striped with honey, roast chicken or lamb, a hard-boiled egg, wine and a container of salted water. Some serve it on a ritual platter.

Bitter herbs, they represent the bitterness endured by the Hebrews during slavery. Apple with honey, It represents the clay and mortar with which bricks were made in Egypt when they were slaves. Roast chicken or lamb, represents the Passover sacrifice.

As one can see, life is also celebrated on Passover. Death has passed us, we have another opportunity to be free, that is to say: to create and live in freedom; without the bondage of slavery.

Spring

As we have seen in the accounts of the Christian Passover and the Jewish Passover, there is a relationship with the returning life. It reinvents itself. The date of Christian Easter was dictated by the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and He established it on the first Sunday after the full moon after the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere. Therefore, the date varies between March 22 and April 25. And that coincides with spring, that is to say the return of life, rebirth, the return to nature which in winter was “as if dead”.

On many occasions, such as Christmas, there is a relationship between nature and ritual. Easter is no exception to this natural cycle of life. For us, 21st century beings who live mainly in cities, this worldview does not make sense, we do not understand it. In addition, we are destroying nature in leaps and bounds and for a bigger misunderstanding in the southern hemisphere, fall begins. But at Easter the reborn life is celebrated, it is this dimension of the human being to give life and to create which despite the persecutions, wars, genocides, murders and other monstrosities caused by the same men (and sometimes by nature) is so strong that it again conquers death and slavery.

KEEP READING: