Kalo Pascha!
When we start to study holidays, we often find a great disparity between the origin and the tradition. Many people assume that today’s holidays were yesterday’s holy days. But the fact of the matter is, St. Patricks’s Day (Lá Fhéile Pádraig), Halloween (All Hallows’ Eve), Thanksgiving (breaking fast day), and Christmas (Christ’s Mass), were always holidays. While each holiday’s history had times where it became more of a Christian holy day, the original was always a non-Christian holiday. It’s difficult to see this truth when each of them are but faint facsimiles of the original.
How did we get from chasing away crawling snakes out of Ireland to chasing after crawling pubs for Guinness? How did we get from the Celtic festival of the dead to the Catholic festival of the undead? How did we get from the Puritan emaciated fast of inconvenience to the American oversaturated feast of convenience? How did we get from the licentiousness Roman Saturnalia to the ubiquitous Christian Christmas?
But there is one exception to this rule. Did you know there’s one major holiday that started out as an actual holy day? Yes, its true! While the provenance of St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are non-Christian, Easter’s inception is actually Christian. So let’s get reacquainted with Easter, shall we?
Here are 6 fun things you didn’t know about Easter:
1. Easter date
a. Twice a year, the Earth is tilted perfectly towards the sun and the length of the day is the same at all points on the planet. In the spring, this equinox is vernal, and in the fall, its autumnal. People have celebrated this rite of spring and life called the vernal equinox around March 20 for millennia.
b. Emperor Constantine assembled the Council of Nicaea in 325. One of the major decisions of this catholic assembly of Christian leaders was that churches should all decide on and follow a single date for Easter.
2. Easter Bunny (OsterHase)
a. In Anglo-Saxon mythology, Eostre (Ostara / Oestre / Eastre) is the personification of the rising sun. She is the goddess of spring and fertility. A friend to all children, the story goes that she changed her pet bird into a rabbit (OsterHase) that brought forth brightly colored eggs, which the goddess gave to the children as gifts. From her name and rites, the festival of Easter is derived. German immigrants brought this tradition to the US in the 1800s.
3. Easter eggs
a. The egg, an ancient symbol of new life, has been associated with pagan festivals celebrating spring since the earliest civilizations.
b. Decorating eggs for Easter is a tradition that dates back to at least the 13th century. Eggs were then a forbidden food during the Lent season; so people would paint and decorate them to mark the end of the period of penance and fasting, and then eat them on Easter as a celebration.
4. Easter Egg Roll
a. The White House began an annual tradition called the White House Easter Egg roll held the Monday after Easter. The first official White House egg roll occurred in 1878 with President Rutherford B. Hayes.
5. Easter candy
a. The tradition of chocolate eggs dates back to early 19th century Europe where chocolate eggs would sometimes be substituted for real eggs.
b. The tradition of jellybeans dates back to 1930s America where it becomes formally connected with Easter. The jellybean was introduced to the US in the 1860s as a hardy gift to send soldiers fighting in the Civil War.
c. The tradition of Peeps dates back to 1950s America when candy manufacturer Just Born created a sugary, pastel-colored marshmallow confection in the shape of yellow chicks. Today, Peeps is the top-selling non-chocolate Easter candy. And Easter is the 2nd best selling holiday for candy.
6. Easter name
a. English and German are the only 2 European languages that call Easter, Easter because of the influence of the aforementioned Eostre. All the other European languages call Easter, Pesach or Pascha, as it should be. Why is this 6th fun fact the most important one to know? Because Pesach (pronounced “PAY-sahch”) is the Hebrew word for “Passover.” Pesach literally means “to pass over, to pass through, to exempt, or to spare.”
In the Bible, there are 4 meanings of Pesach (4 kinds of Pesach):
1. Pesach “Passover” (meaning)
a. “to pass over”
2. Pesacḥ Miẓrayim “Passover of Egypt” (original)
a. Exodus 12
3. Pesach Dorot “Passover of Generations” (tradition)
a. holy day celebrating the story of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt
b. this year it is from sunset March 25, 2013 - nightfall April 2, 2013
c. Nisan 10 – set aside lamb
d. Nisan 14 – sacrifice lamb
e. Nisan 15 – partake of lamb
f. Nisan 14-20 – 7 days of unleavened bread (rid home of yeast/fungus)
4. Korban Pesach “Passover Offering” (symbol)
a. sacrificial offering (a lamb) made in the Temple on the holy day
b. different from other sanctuary sacrifices because it must be:
i. selected days in advance
ii. selected without any blemish
iii. everybody kills it exactly at twilight
iv. everybody spreads blood on top and sides of door
v. entirely eaten that same night
vi. entirely roasted with fire
vii. eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs
viii. eaten with family and friends
ix. no broken bones
x. no leftovers (any remainder was completely burned)
If you want to celebrate Passover, you have to have a lamb. If you want to celebrate Easter, the Bible says you have to have Passover. So that means if you want to have Easter, you have to have a lamb. Not a vernal equinox, or a Council of Nicea, or Eostre the goddess of spring, or OsterHase the bunny, or colored eggs, or an egg roll, or a chocolate egg, or jelly beans, or even Peeps. If you want to have Easter, you have to have… a lamb! But as Exodus 12 specifies, not just any kind of lamb would do. What kind of lamb exactly then?
Revelation 5:6 doesn’t just tell us what kind, it introduces us to the Original: “And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.”
Talk about a surprise. A lamb shows up instead of a lion! In fact, not just any lamb, but what kind of lamb? A lamb as it had been slain. Just like the Korban Pesach (Sacrificial Lamb) in Exodus 12, this Korban Pesach in Revelation 5 also saves His people. But while the lamb in Exodus 12 was completely consumed, as well as all of its future descendants, the lamb in Revelation is walking in the midst of the throne. So who is this Lamb that was slain? Jesus. Jesus is the Korban Pesach.
This Easter holiday week, instead of saying Happy Easter, can we say “Kalo Pascha.” Please repeat after me, “Kalo Pascha!” “Kalo Pascha” is Greek for “Happy Easter.” This is actually what Greek Orthodox Christians still say during Easter. But Kalo Pascha doesn’t just mean “Happy Easter.” The Greek Pascha comes from the Hebrew Pesach, so what does Pascha/Pesach mean? Passover. So Kalo Pascha also means “Happy Passover.” But the third meaning of Kalo Pascha is the best.
Pascha doesn’t just mean Easter. Pascha doesn’t just mean Passover. Pascha also means…I’ll give you a hint, “baaa!” The one in Exodus 12 is a Korban Pesach (a lamb), the one in Revelation 5 is THE Korban Pesach (THE Lamb). So when you say “Kalo Pascha” you’re actually saying “Happy Lamb.” “Kalo Pascha!” “Happy Lamb!”
Kevin Kim recently moved from uptown Charlotte in North Carolina to downtown Spartanburg in South Carolina. Kevin knew what it was like being a Korean-American for his entire life, so he dedicated half of his life to being a Korean-American pastor. 17 years later, he serves as the current senior pastor for two churches in the Carolinas Conference whose appreciation of kimchi is anecdotal at best.