Easter is not about Jesus

Whatever made you think it was?

Easter is about bunnies and chicks, chocolate eggs and hot cross buns, family gatherings, holidays and Bank Holiday Monday traffic jams. Jesus rarely gets a look in. And why should He? It's not His Feast.

One of His Feasts is Passover/Pesach. Pesach is the Hebrew word from which we get the words 'paschal', 'Pascal', 'pasque' as in the flowers which are late this year, etc. 

It happens about the same time as Easter, but Easter goes back further. Eostre was a northern mother goddess of fertility, but variant forms of her name and general duties turn up all over the place. Our friend Nimue or Innana was also known as Ishtar. Elsewhere she was Astarte and in Ancient Israel you will find her in the Tenach as Ashtoreth. 

She is typical of the widespread belief in a mother goddess and is often associated with the horned moon (crescent) and the morning star (Venus). This is pretty much universal, with the exception of Arabia, where in pagan Arabia, the moon was seen as a god and since Mohammed, his family crest of crescent moon and star, has become the symbol of Islam.

It's worth noting that how symbols were used and how they are used now isn't always the same thing. They weren't always used in the same way at any given time.

Jesus is about Sacrificial Death and Resurrection. He rose again at the barley harvest. The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost/Shavuot another Spring-ish harvest. His return will be at Tabernacles/Sukkot, which is yet another harvest. It was also when He was born, but that is another story which I'm saving for later in the year.

Eostre, and all those other god and goddesses, sometimes have stories which, at first sight, look like Bible Stories. The Bible has something they don't. Firstly, it is a lot less fanciful and more prosaic, and , secondly, it has history on its side.

Jesus was, and is, a real person, and His life is referred to outside the Bible. He can also be dated and quite accurately. None of the other contenders has any kind of historicity and the events of their 'lives' have never been dated, even approximately.

Enjoy your chocolate eggs and bunnies, but give thanks to the Risen Lord Jesus Christ. He is alive!

Why did Jesus celebrate Passover on the wrong day?

The nub of the problem is this: It appears that Jesus celebrated Passover with His disciples. Certainly the Synoptic (Matthew, Mark and Luke) gospels say so but John clearly states that Jesus died at the same time as the Passover Lamb. Matt. 26: 17- 19; Mk. 14:12 - 16; Lk. 22:7 - 20; John 19:31 .

The first thing we need to realise is that the Last Supper was not on a different day to the Passover. Jewish reckoning was from sunset to sunset. This is a key to a number of apparent anomalies in the accounts. It looks like a different day to us because we reckon things differently. If we look at Genesis 1:5 we can see this right at the beginning. This is a death and resurrection pattern. First you sleep, then you awaken.

The problem then becomes one of timing. Clearly Jesus couldn't do both things at once, but, as He fulfilled the Law, was this meal a Passover? The writers of the synoptics thought it was and Jesus explicitly states that it was.

In recent years, it has been realised that there was more than one version of the calendar in use at that time.  We must also remember that Jerusalem was packed with Jews from all over the Empire for the Passover feast. The different calendars would enable a practical accommodation to get the lambs slaughtered and everybody able to celebrate the feast.  

It seems that the Pharisees, the Galileans and possibly some others celebrated the Passover on the same night as Jesus did. The Sadducees (including the priests), Judeans, and again, possibly others, followed later. John records when the High Priest would sacrifice the Lamb according to the Sadducean calendar.

I think that this is the most likely solution but it is not a definitive one. Why? Because there is not yet enough material from outside the scriptures to settle the question for most scholars. Take a wander round the Internet and you will find all sorts of solutions, some reasoned and with good evidence and others bordering on the loopy.

One thing is certain. Understanding the Jewish Passover is key to understanding the Last Supper. One interesting suggestion is that it was a Passover without a lamb. I think that this would have been mentioned in the scriptures, but it recalls Isaac's question to Abraham and with it Abraham's answer, "God will provide a Lamb". And so He did.