To me, the most important thing about Easter is the message of a resurrection experience, regardless of how a person wants to interpret that.  Death is not the end,  Whether what is important to us that is of value to others lives on, and takes its own life after we die or the possibility of a relationship with the risen Christ or the possibility of our own lives after death, death does not have to be the end.  It can be the beginning of something even greater.

easter egg hunts, including the hiding them, trying to remember where we hid them, the joys of finding and then later watching others search & find and the extra joy of, days or perhaps months later, finding a hidden egg

 

figuring out, as a kid, a taxonomy of sorts of easter candies...the worst for me were those giant jelly bean-like eggs made of supergrainy sugar...

 

i also remember fondly dying actual eggs in food colouring with my mom

 

those small wicker baskets with the brightly coloured plastic filler

 

no evidence for Oestre, that false g_ddess

 

i've tried to make my own easter traditions -- writing little witticisms like 'hug a stranger', 'do something you've never done before', 'splash in a puddle' on strips of paper and then put them in plastic eggs and hide them around the city...

 

 

New beginnings. 

It means to me a nice long weekend on which we remember and celebrate that hope and love prevails, even if it might not look that way at first glance.
It means that human beings can draw on that power for strength as Jesus did. Symbols of flowers and eggs and food are part of it for fun. I am especially fond of Maundy Thursday as a celebration of the recommendation of a rule so contrary to the usual worldly laws: that leaders ( and others)shall be serving others (by washing their feet) to be good leaders- and the celebration of community..

Definitely not the image you posted!

 

New opportunities.

 

that's the Broadway musical jesus :3

The Holy Week reminds me of the joy that can follow the dark, the promise of life hidden in a cocoon.

 

It reminds me of the depth of cruelty that society can place on folks and how that burden can be carried.

 

It reminds me of the importance of faith

 

It reminds me of the story and the wider connection to all christianity who recogize Easter, and those who recognize the stories of Jesus even if they do not see him as the Messiah.

 

It is important for me for it to be part of the week,  Easter Sunday doesn't happen without Good Friday.

 

 

*

At the same time, because of our northern climate, it reminds me of all that goes before in terms of spring, new birth, ...and i am thankful for the incorporation of ritual in our denomination.

 

 

Easter version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.

 

 

Hi blackbelt1961,

 

 

I believe Easter is the breaking of Good Friday.

 

Good Friday is about death.  The death of God in human flesh and more than that the death in God's human flesh of all that is wrong and corrupt.  Most personally the death of me and all my sin past present and future.

 

What would drive someone so fundamentally better than myself to die for me?

 

I may never, ever understand it.  It can be explained to me in very easy and simple to understand terms.  Terms that make sense in my life and my experience.  None of that makes the exchange of God in human flesh for my corrupted flesh sensible.

 

And yet there it is.

 

I hate it.  I wish it wasn't so.  I'm convinced that it is so and quite frankly I am both humbled and shamed.

 

Easter begins to break the guilt and shame of Good Friday.

 

On Friday my sinful self is bound to Christ upon his cross and with Christ I die and am laid in the tomb.  End of story.

 

Except.

 

On Sunday when Jesus is being raised from the dead I'm being dragged into the land of the living with him.  Something has changed.  I can't put my finger on it.  Those who have known me my whole life noticed a change.  Some accepted it and thought it a good thing.  Others rejected it and me along with it.  I simply was not the same.

 

How different am I?  Not different enough.  I was never a wild child, challenging authority and ready to take on the man.  There is probably more of that in me now though I am far from a rock the boat kind of guy.  I'm in the boat too and I understand that the idea is not to tip the thing.

 

Easter frees me.

 

I am nowhere near the Easter person I want to be.  I understand that comes with time and discipline.  I need to learn and I need to be tested on what I have learned.

 

Easter invites me.

 

I am welcomed into something bigger than I am.  Something where I can contribute to something bigger and better than I would ever be on my own.

 

Easter confronts me.

 

Not everything that went down into the grave on Friday needs to come up out of it on Sunday.  I can let the dead things, even the dead parts of me, stay right were they were placed.

 

That is what Easter means to me.

 

 

Rumour has it that when Martin Luther was hard pressed and shadows surrounded him he leaned upon his baptism and the promise contained withn that sacrament.

 

When I am hard pressed and darkness closes in.  I remember that I have already walked up out of one grave.  Anything less than that is but an obstacle waiting to be conquered.  It might take days, weeks, months or years.  It might mean Jesus has to pick me up and dust me off because I am too tired or too weak to do it myself.

 

I will be raised.  I will stand. and I will do that in the shadow of Christ Jesus and his cross.  His grace guarantees it.

 

Easter is the sign of that promised grace.

 

Grace and peace to you.

John

 

 

 

[/quote]

Easter makes two things present to my understanding.

 

First and foremost is the impossibility of stifling what is true and good in human being. Though religious and political powers collude to suppress truth, it will not be suppressed.

 

Second is the persistence of abusive power by which the true and good in human being is compromised and subordinated to the power seeking devices of religious and political structures.

 

George

 

 

-- Thank you --gecko46- This has now become one of my favorite songs.--airclean33

Family.

 

Oh, and chocolate.

 

I should add that Easter doesn't really mean "death" or "rebirth" to me. Every season is the end of something and the beginning of another. I love winter, so the whole, "Yey, it's spring!" sentiment that is so popular this time of year doesn't really apply to me, though by now, even I'm tired of the cold weather.

 

Transformational death and re-birth.

 

 

That's the short answer .

 

I kind of gave my detailed answer in a post on the resurrection thread so I'll pop over and see if I can find it and copy it over here.

 

 

I would tend to also say that there is the notion that out of death comes new life which plays out even in the scientific view of the universe (e.g. the heavy elements in our bodies came from the death of an early star).

 

One could also view the survival of ones' "spirit" in a non-literal sense such as the memories of family and friends, creative acts left behind, and so on.

 

But it all comes back to Arm's statement for me.

 

Mendalla

 

I believe at this time in the year we should remember that we who follow Christ Jesus and are called children of the way". Keep in mind the meaning of this. Jesus the man obayed God The Father all The way. Because of this He has sett us free from the death we had earned. He won the battle to sett us free from death. That we may walk into life ever lasting. Oh don't think of Him as being dead . For our God raised Him and took Him Home. We have not a God that is dead . But one who lives. We will see Him again as He is. King of Kings  and Lord of Lords. We will see  all that lives and all of Heaven,  kneel and call Him that. We who follow have been called , Those of The way. It should have been , Those Who will Go All The Way. Death of my flesh, can not destroy my Spirit . It just setts it free to go home. Only GOD has the power to destroy both. This time of year reminds me . My soul is in His Hands. All Glory Be To God.---airclean33

Nice answers, to me Easter is the ultimate hope , not just for me but for the whole world, That God is ultimately in control , that His principles do rein.

In the resurrection I see, Beauty , Light , Hope, Love, Compassion, Grace, Victory, comfort and Truth for mankind.

 

One of my all time fave videos ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 

 

It is also one of my favourites and I am not even a believer. Go figure eh.

Really? Go all the way? You want to skip first, second and third base?

Hi dreamerman-- If only it was but a game .  I believe befor He  Christ is done . He will have touch all bases. I may miss them dreamerman I don't think he will.I amglad to hear you like that song. Perhaps someday we will lison to it together.  airclean33

What does Easter mean to me....

It means that the promise of resurrection is real and that it includes me....

Freedom that no person can take away from me.....

That is what I believe and how I feel 

Rita

All these responses are warming my heart.

 

Easter is the one-day celebration of all that I love about my faith.  It reminds me of all the joy that is possible in the world.  Even as we struggle through our trials (Holy Week), we feel comfort knowing that there is JOY awaiting us.  We always have hope of something new and great around the next corner.

I love Halleluja but if I remember from another thread. it has nothing to do with Easter. David and Bathsheba, I believe.

The version Gecko posted is sung by someone else with changed lyrics, CH. Her voice and the choir are nice, too. But I like the lyrics of Leonard Cohen's version as it is because that's how he intended them (best sung by KD Lang IMO.)

Easter means resurrection from the grey deadness of winter in our lives (that takes many forms), and mourning. It means renewal, transformation, awakening to new life and new reality. Starting over. It also symbolizes spring, colourfulness, and good humour and sunshine.

 

As I understand it, the current lyrics were, with Cohen's blessing, the ones assembled by John Cale (Velvet Underground) when he covered it for the I'm Your Fan Cohen tribute. Apparently Cohen gave Cale something like 15 pages of verses for the song and Cale pieced his lyric together from those. The Buckley, Lang, and even later versions by Cohen now use Cale's version rather than the one Cohen sang on Various Positions.

 

There is, apparently, a viral version on Youtube by an Irish priest who has done his own lyrics.

 

Mendalla

 

In the Easter version posted above by Gecko, Kelley Mooney (the singer in the video) says that she applied for the rights to record the lyrics changes she made. I also watched a Cohen vid from the 2000s sometime. These are the only other lyrics I've heard before today.

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/leonardcohen/hallelujah.html

Okay. I just listened to the original, Mendalla. I have heard it before but never clued in because I guess I'm more used to hearing Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainright or KD Lang cover it- or Cohen's later live version. Thanks. Learned something today.

Kelley Mooney...very nice....

Well that wasn't quite the game I was referring to. I don't think you can get someone pregnant in baseball but who knows if you went all the way maybe.

Here bis Kd Lang singing Hallelujah     

Hi Dreamerman-- No I understood what you were saying. I chose not to answer that . So changed my post to mean somthing else. airclean33

Fair enough. Here comes Peter Cotton Tail hopping down the bunny trail. Hippity, hoppity Easter's on its way.

To me Easter is about HOPE - in and for this world, and in and for the next.

 

i've also been to a really, really cool easter vigil service (which i've written aboot afore on WC)

 

so when i saw the following piccy, i had another moment of 'i'm living in the future'

 

 

Jesus died because of sin - in his case because of the sins of others, then on glorious resurrection day, he rose again. This is a kind of model for us all. We all start out spiritually dead in our sin, but Jesus has the power to bring us into spiritual life as well. I rejoice at Easter because someone whom I love, Jesus, came back to life. I rejoice at Easter because Jesus has given spiritual life to many of my family members and friends. I rejoice at Easter because Jesus has given spiritual life to me. I celebrate Easter because Jesus has made spiritual life available to one and all who will accept him and receive his free gift of salvation. The more of us who become so alive, the more our communities, cities, nations, and world will change for the better. That's what Easter means to me.

I see Jesus dying rather as an example of our sin. In other words, our "sin" is being caught up in this world of time, life and death, like a vicious cycle where everyday the vultures return to feast.
Jesus died to show us that this world is an illusion, and that our lives, our personal lives, are but our "second" nature.
Pick up the cross and walk the path of renunciation, leaving the "lower" self on the cross of matter. We've been shown the way.

This world is an illusion? That's cultish thinking. This is the sort of thing that scares me about Christianity, because even common beliefs are indistinguishable from the tenets of cults.

No Chansen, that's science. Matter is frozen energy, you should know this. Frozen energy does not persist in time as the universe is in a constant state of atrophy. Matter, therefore, walks hand in hand with time. And time is relative to our point of view. Expand your awareness and your perception of time and space changes.

 

just to be clear. what Neo posts is not christian 

 

Science does not suggest in any way that the world is an illusion, Neo. An illusion imples unreality, a deception of the senses. The notion of matter as frozen energy means that the world is made up of more than we sense, but what we sense is still quite real. It is just not the whole picture, any more than we can understand a person just by our basic five senses. We can see, touch, taste, smell their surface (this is getting a bit sexy, isn't it?) and we can hear their voice, but that does not show us the complex system of organs underneath or the complex interactions of bodily systems or the electrical impulses streaming through their nerves to control it all. What we sense about the person is quite real, it just isn't the whole picture. Same with existence. What we sense is quite real, it is NOT an illusion, but there is much more underlying it that we do not sense without making a special effort.

 

What you are suggesting leans more to Platonism, which is a metaphysics.

 

Mendalla

 

And, somewhat pertinent to this thread, I heard a wonderful UU Easter sermon this morning. Not an especially challenging (at least for me) and, in fact, not unlike how I might preach it these days. Our minister started off with the basic message that the Resurrection means "Death will not win". Whatever happens to us, the Earth, the Sun, and so on, something will always go on (yes, he referenced Cosmos). He then wove a view of Existence rather like my own, with references to both pantheism and process theology (though he did not use the term and avoided the philosophical nitty-gritty). He actually studied process theology at Claremont School of Theology at one point during his education and it is a clear influence on his thinking. In the end, it comes down to us being part of something bigger than ourselves and that death is always transcended on some level, even if we don't believe in a literal resurrection.

 

Mendalla

 

I agree, science doesn't suggest anything in this regards, it just points to the facts. Yes, I'm talking about "meta"-physics, beyond physics.

 

What we sense of the physical universe is very real because we are using the physical universe to sense it, e.g. we live in physical bodies.

 

We don't just live in physical bodies, IMHO. They are an integral, necessary part of our existence. They are wondrous, beautiful elements of the universe.

 

Of course, I'm agnostic on consciousness being separate/transcendent (and lean to it being not) but even if it is, that does not mean we can demean the physical. The body and soul must somehow need and complement each other to the point where they affect one another intimately. The body has got to be more than just a vessel else its marvellous complexity is rather pointless.

 

Mendalla

 

People often think of the soul as something that kind of floats behind us in life like a ballon on a string. The way I see it rather is that the physical body is more like an image or reflection of the soul. Just as we cast a 2 dimensional image on the ground on a sunny day, so does the soul cast a 3 dimension image in the universe as us. We couldn't walk away from our soul anymore than our shadow could walk away from us.

Very Platonic. You're familiar with the parable of the cave, I assume?

 

Mendalla

 

 

i hear ya...i mean, one of the cores of Christianity is a festival around a jew being murdered

 

human beings are a bizarre bunch

 

i love them anyway

Yes, I've heard this before: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

 

Modern science doesn't believe in the soul of things. But the ancient wisdom says that the manifested universe, aka the "breath of life", is an effect of an unseen Cause. We only see the shadows of what really Is.

Exactly. In Platonism, the Ideas are essentially your unseen Cause. They are reflected in our world as shadows of their true selves and the goal of the philosopher is to use reason to learn the pure Ideas behind the shadows.

 

Mendalla

 

I have a couple questions about the resurrection:

 

Why did the stone have to be rolled away for Jesus to be resurrected? Couldn't he just walk through anything? eg:walls

 

Why does the body have to be gone in order to be resurrected when we are told we will have new bodies? If Jesus original body was the body he resurrected in, why did no one recognize him when he appeared?

 

 

He didn't have to roll the stone away. The story's more powerful that way. It helps the myth as idea worth believing in, transcend reality. I think people didn't recognize him in the garden and on the road and at their meal because they were recognizing His spirit in others (and at first didn't get the concept). Why were his wounds still showing in his new body? Wouldn't he be healed? Again, I think, allegorically, without that we wouldn't have the story of Thomas and the point of Thomas needing to see things literally to believe.