Mac-Coleman

30 March 2013 –

This weekend many Christians celebrate Easter.  In the Western churches, we celebrate it according to the Gregorian calendar’s reckoning of the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.  This formula was established by the First Council of Nicea in 325.  This year, Easter falls on 31 March in the West.  The Gregorian calendar was named after Pope Gregory XIII who, in 1582, launched the reform of the centuries-old Julian calendar to accommodate for and adjust to the fact that a day is simply not twenty-four hours long, and that a year is not exactly 365 days long and, therefore, there should should not be a leap year every couple of hundred years.   Most Orthodox Christians continue to celebrate Easter based on the old Julian calendar, which was abandoned over the centuries by all countries for all reasons than religious ones.  The last country to switch to the Gregorian calendar for secular life was Greece in 1926.  During the 21^st century, the Julian calendar’s Spring Equinox is thirteen days after that of the Gregorian calendar.  Therefore, this year, with a long gap between the Julian Spring Equinox and then next full moon, Christians in the East will celebrate The Resurrection of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on 5 May. 

 If that is more than you want to know about Easter and its date on the calendar, then you don’t need to continue.  Such differences, however, compel me to reflect on how we humans differ in our understanding and treatment of truth.  These differences hie back to fundamental disagreements among peoples and faiths about the nature of God and the purpose of life.  They also represent faithful peoples’ desire to pull the core of their beliefs through the ages to the present.  But, time nearly always strips out the elemental passion from established religions often to leave a hollow surface of distrust and disdain.  Those_____ (fill in the blank with religious devotees you don’t like) are in the dark because they_____ (fill in the blank with your explanation du jour and go on to something more fun to talk about).  It is an evil, shallow game we Christians have always played.  Yet, despite our constant corruption, the single most important topic of this life remains our attempt to understand and accept the mission of Jesus Christ and of how paid for our sins, laid down His life, rose again from the dead, and lives today as our Advocate with the Father.

Easter is the holiday on the Christian calendar that glorifies the very essence of faith in Jesus Christ.  We as Christians and disciples of Jesus should prepare for it with much more solemnity than we do.  All should stop everything in their lives.  All should bow.  All should confess.  All should beg for forgiveness.  The simple poetry of Charles H. Gabriel’s song captures best the awesome significance of our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. 

 “I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me, confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me.

I tremble to know that for me He was crucified, that for me, a sinner, He suffered, He bled and died.

Oh, it is wonderful that He should care for me, enough to die for me!

Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me!

I marvel to think that He would descend from His throne divine, to rescue a soul so rebellious and proud as mine. 

That He should extend His great love unto such as I, sufficient to own, to redeem, and to justify.

Oh, it is wonderful that He should care for me, enough to die for me!

Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me!

I think of His hands pierced and bleeding to pay the debt!  Such mercy, such love and devotion can I forget?

No, no, I will praise and adore at the mercy seat, until at the glorified throne I kneel at His feet.

Oh, it is wonderful that He should care for me, enough to die for me!

Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me!

This song voices the concepts of truth, of which we can understand only the rudiments: love, grace, redemption, justification, mercy.  They echo a message from before this Earth.  They whisper a purpose for mortality through a shadowy veil that protects us from the glare of eternal justice.  It is good that we don’t understand much.  It is good that we must act in faith that His grace is sufficient to forgive us if we but repent of our sins and obey Him.  It is good that we must act in faith that His resurrection allows all of us to be resurrected.  It is good that we can’t comprehend our lives very well.  If we did understand, alas, we would be damned.  Because man’s history of treating with disdain and contempt the limited truths we do understand about this world tells me that we would treat these most sacred truths in the same, murderous way.  But, until that great getting’ up mornin’, we shall be lovingly protected in our ignorance, no matter the earthly calendar we use to celebrate Easter.