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What is the real message of Easter?
I remember vividly how I experienced the Christian holiday Good Friday as an exceptionally long and boring day in my childhood.
This feeling was for a without doubt in part caused by the name of that day as here in the Finnish language we call it the Long Friday (Pitkäperjantai). But mostly it was caused by the simple fact that in my childhood in the 60’s the television programming on the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday were exceptionally gloomy and boring, sometimes even in a disturbing way that quite baffled a child.
Nothing entertaining or funny was allowed to be seen on those days on television or anywhere else, so that the members of the on that time still very powerful religious community would not feel themselves offended. Even dancing and going to movies was forbidden by official state law, so that that the so fragile peace of mind of the Christians wouldn't be disturbed.
Now, just 40 years later these Easter holidays have a quite different feel to them and the official gloom and darkness surrounding them has quite completely passed away.
The grim and bloody religious message of these days can now be wholly bypassed if a person so wishes and even television-programming isn’t noticeably affected by this Christian feast.
Religion has been largely marginalized in our advanced Nordic society and in any case religion does not tell anymore what is allowed behavior in the society and what is not.
This is the reason why we can now finally wholly concentrate to the real message of Easter; the victory of spring over the forces of winter, the victory of sun and light over the darkness and the yearly revival of the nature.
The real message of Easter is hidden in Easter-bunnies, Easter-eggs, chocolate and Ryegrass. In fact these things have for a long time n been more important to most people than the bloody human sacrifice of a monotheistic religion that drives some people to a extreme moodiness year after year.
Easter-eggs and ryegrass symbolize the forever extremely important event when winter gives way to the summer and despair of the winter gives way to a new hope.
The Jewish religion and Christianity after it did however knowingly steal this age-old feast of spring for themselves.
Luckily we can now forget this sorry interlude in the human development if we wish and give Easter back its position as a great feast of regeneration of the Nature.
This feeling was for a without doubt in part caused by the name of that day as here in the Finnish language we call it the Long Friday (Pitkäperjantai). But mostly it was caused by the simple fact that in my childhood in the 60’s the television programming on the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday were exceptionally gloomy and boring, sometimes even in a disturbing way that quite baffled a child.
Nothing entertaining or funny was allowed to be seen on those days on television or anywhere else, so that the members of the on that time still very powerful religious community would not feel themselves offended. Even dancing and going to movies was forbidden by official state law, so that that the so fragile peace of mind of the Christians wouldn't be disturbed.
Now, just 40 years later these Easter holidays have a quite different feel to them and the official gloom and darkness surrounding them has quite completely passed away.
The grim and bloody religious message of these days can now be wholly bypassed if a person so wishes and even television-programming isn’t noticeably affected by this Christian feast.
Religion has been largely marginalized in our advanced Nordic society and in any case religion does not tell anymore what is allowed behavior in the society and what is not.
This is the reason why we can now finally wholly concentrate to the real message of Easter; the victory of spring over the forces of winter, the victory of sun and light over the darkness and the yearly revival of the nature.
The real message of Easter is hidden in Easter-bunnies, Easter-eggs, chocolate and Ryegrass. In fact these things have for a long time n been more important to most people than the bloody human sacrifice of a monotheistic religion that drives some people to a extreme moodiness year after year.
Easter-eggs and ryegrass symbolize the forever extremely important event when winter gives way to the summer and despair of the winter gives way to a new hope.
The Jewish religion and Christianity after it did however knowingly steal this age-old feast of spring for themselves.
Luckily we can now forget this sorry interlude in the human development if we wish and give Easter back its position as a great feast of regeneration of the Nature.
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