Rikard Svartvik, redaktör för NE:s engelska ordbok
For many of us, Easter has become a time for painting eggs and of excessive eating. We also rejoice at the coming of spring and its promise of new life – at least in the northern hemisphere. But how and why do we celebrate Easter in English?
First of all, what about the name? If we are to believe Bede, a monk and historian writing in the eighth century, the Christian festival Easter takes its name from Eastre, the goddess of dawn and spring, who was worshipped long before Jesus Christ walked the earth.
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Daybreak: the goddess of dawn and spring gave her name to Easter. |
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SAM LLIC/FLICKR |
Forever young
As it happened, the Anglo-Saxons – a generic term for the Germanic peoples who lived in what we today call England – celebrated a great festival of revival when day and night were of equal length, the vernal equinox, which occurred roughly at the same time of year as the Christian observance of the resurrection of Christ. For the missionaries who arrived in Anglo-Saxon England in the seventh century it made sense to alter the festival itself but keep its pagan name.
Pagan and Christian alike, we still celebrate the coming of spring. After all, it’s a time of new life. Springtime is forever young and lively: daffodils are blooming while the elder leaves are out, and the horse chestnut and blackthorn are budding. Birds are nesting, frogs are spawning and gardeners are mowing lawns when the sleet has finally cleared. For Christians, however, this is also the season of renewal at Easter when Christ rose from the dead.
No spring picnic
In medieval England, the common word for the season following winter was not spring but lent, as it still is in Dutch: een late lente is ‘a late spring’ in English. The word is related to long, presumably because in springtime the days were getting longer and the nights shorter. From the middle of the 16th century the expression ‘the spring of the year’ was shortened to spring as the name of the first season of the year.
For many good Christians, however, Lent (now with a capital L) is no spring picnic. For starters, this was and for many Christians still is a period of fasting: no meat or rich food for forty days. Sundays are not included, though, which is why Lent actually begins on Ash Wednesday. Second, this has always been the most solemn time of the year when Christians prepare for Easter by brooding over their shortcomings and all the things they have done wrong.
Holy Week
Almost needless to say, today very few Christians follow this tradition strictly, preferring to make a smaller sacrifice or give money to charity. Still, the last week in Lent, known in English as Holy Week or sometimes Passion Week, is the most important time in the Christian year, including some holidays as well as quite a few holy days, so to speak.
Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Easter and marks the beginning of Holy Week. In some churches small crosses made of palm leaves are given to the members of the congregation. The tradition comes from the Bible story in which palm branches were placed on the ground in front of Christ as he entered Jerusalem in triumph riding on a donkey.
The Last Supper
On the night before his death, Jesus shared a final meal – later to be known as ‘The Last Supper’, which is also the name of a famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci – with his disciples who had followed him for so long. However, before the meal he washed the feet of each and everyone: a task normally performed by a servant. By doing this he wanted to show his followers that they should love each other in humble ways.
In England, well into the 17th century, there was a custom for the sovereign to wash the feet of the poor in Westminster Abbey every Maundy Thursday, as this day is called in English. Nowadays Queen Elizabeth II does not wash feet on Maundy Thursday. Instead, at Westminster Abbey or a selected cathedral city, she hands out something called Maundy money, which is specially minted for the occasion. This year the Queen will attend the annual Royal Maundy Service at Westminster Abbey on Thursday, 21 April on Her Majesty’s 85th birthday.
Later during the Last Supper, Jesus passed round bread and wine. He said the bread was his body broken for them and the wine was his blood shed for them. Furthermore, he told them that he was going to die soon, but when they would share bread and wine, they should always remember him. This sacrament – an important Christian ceremony – has become known as the Eucharist or, in some denominations, the Communion.
The kiss and the cross
Later that night, after the meal, as Jesus and his disciples were praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was betrayed with a kiss by Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve apostles, whose name is conventionally used for any traitor. In Christian theology, the chain of events from the Last Supper until his death and resurrection is known as The Passion: the word here actually means ‘suffering’ and is originally a Greek verb for ‘suffer’.
On the following day, Good Friday, devout Christians remember the day when Jesus was crucified, when he was nailed to a wooden cross to die, by Roman soldiers. This is the reason why the cross has ever since been such an important symbol or sign for Christians. There are crosses in churches and many Christians wear a cross on a chain around their necks.
In the United Kingdom, many people still eat buttered hot cross buns on Good Friday. These small bread rolls contain currants or raisins and are marked with the Christian symbol of the cross on the top. Folklore include many superstitions surrounding hot cross buns. Traditionally, people used to think that eating these buns could cure various illnesses.
In Christianity, Good Friday is a sad and sombre day and churches never have flowers or decorations on this day. The church is left dark and there is just a simple cross on the altar, which sometimes is covered in black. So why is it called Good Friday, when there is nothing good about it? According to dictionaries, an old sense of good is ‘observed as holy’. So that’s why, although some Christians prefer to believe it’s because Jesus gave up his life for the good of everyone.
Life over death
Easter Eve, or Holy Saturday as it is also known, is the last day in Lent and of Holy Week, the day Jesus rested in the tomb. While some church traditions continue daily service on this day before Easter, there is no communion. Traditionally however, Holy Saturday only lasts until dusk, making it the official start for the Easter season, also called Eastertide, which actually lasts for fifty days until Pentecost.
Easter Day, also called Easter Sunday, is the most important date in the Christian year and a happy day for Christians since they believe that, on this day, Jesus rose from the dead. They believe that his resurrection shows that life could win over death. Church bells ring and churches are decorated with flowers such as white lilies. Tradition has it that beautiful white lilies grew where Christ’s sweat dropped to the ground when he was being crucified.
Easter Parade
On Easter Day every year New Yorkers flock to Fifth Avenue in particular to see wonderful displays of elaborate hats (called Easter bonnets) and costumes: an informal event or spectacle, which really has to be seen to be believed. It became world-famous because of Irving Berlin’s song ‘Easter Parade’ (1932) with the first lines of the refrain:
| In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it | |
| You’ll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade |
Born Izrail Bejlin to Jewish parents in Russia, Irving Berlin (1888–1989) dominated American popular music for forty years and composed many classics, among them ‘White Christmas’ (1942) and ‘There's No Business Like Show Business’ (1946).
Easter Bunny
When children in America wake up on Easter morning, they hope that the Easter Bunny has been. The Easter Bunny, which is actually a hare, goes (or jumps) from home to home – much like Santa Claus at Christmas – while the children are sleeping, hiding Easter eggs: small plastic eggs filled with candy or small presents. This tradition, originally German, of an egg-laying rabbit has in later years become quite common in the United Kingdom, too.
In northern England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, children have rolled eggs down grassy slopes for hundreds of years, a tradition also known in parts of southern Scandinavia. Egg-rolling, as this game is called, is basically a race where children push hard-boiled, decorated eggs through the grass using long-handled spoons. If the egg is not damaged the children will be lucky in various ways.
In 1814 the tradition was introduced into the United States and proved to be a success: the Easter Egg Roll has become an annual event taking place on the lawn of the White House every Easter Monday for children and their parents. The President and First Lady have announced that this year’s White House Easter Egg Roll will be held on Monday, 25 April with the theme of ‘Get Up and Go!’ promoting health and wellness.
Hope springs eternal
http://www.ne.se/rep/hope-springs-eternal
Nationalencyklopedin, 2012-05-27
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