Deep Cover

Every Easter, as every Christmas, we hear stories about how this holiday was originally a pagan celebration that was “Christianized” by the early church. Pagans celebrated themes of rebirth for hundreds of years before they ever heard the story of the resurrection. Even the name “Easter” comes from “Eastre,” the great mother goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. Some use these facts to denigrate Christianity, or to prove that somehow Christianity is just a different take on ancient pagan traditions.

The fact is, the pagans got some things right. When you’re living in Northern Europe without the benefit of indoor plumbing, central heating, or modern agricultural methods, spring isn’t something you take lightly. It’s not the time of year that you look forward to seeing chocolate-covered bunnies in store windows; it’s the time of year you begin to regain hope that your family won’t freeze or starve to death this year. The spring equinox was truly a cause for celebration.

The pagans realized, in their limited way, that spring meant salvation – at least salvation of a limited and temporary kind. They didn’t take spring for granted. And they probably knew, despite their prayers and rituals, that there was nothing they could do to make spring come any quicker, or even to ensure that it came it all.

Spring, like our salvation through Christ, is a gift. Most of us have heard the story of the resurrection so many times that it has become part of the fabric of our reality: the notion that Christ did not have to come, that He did not have to die and rise again, is incomprehensible to us. Christmas comes every year, and Easter follows like clockwork, every year. We could print our calendars for the next thousand years, and Easter would always be there.

If you want to get an small idea of what it would be like if there were no Easter – no resurrection – imagine a year where winter never ended. Impossible, right? Not so. The year 1816 is known in New England as the “Year there was no summer.” Winter cold lasted well into spring, and the growing season from late spring to early fall was punctuated by a series of devastating cold waves that did major damage to the crops and greatly reduced the food supply. In areas of central and northern New England, the summer had only two extended periods without frost or near freezing temperatures. A widespread snow fell in June. As a result, corn did not ripen and hay, fruits, and vegetables were greatly reduced in quantity and quality. The promise of spring that year turned out to be hollow.

It’s a safe bet that the New Englanders who lived through this year never saw spring in quite the same way again. When even something as certain as the progression of the seasons can no longer be depended on, it is clear just how much we need God. Spring does not have to follow winter; it only does so by the grace of God. Neither was God’s gift of salvation inevitable. To take it for granted is a mistake exponentially more foolish than assuming that winter must always end. Were it not for the grace of God, winter could continue forever. In fact, that’s exactly the prospect with which we would be faced were it not for the gift of salvation: an endless winter, cold and gray, with no hope of spring.

So, as I say, the pagans got some things right: they understood the importance of spring, and never took it for granted. With the pagans we express gratitude for the end of winter and the return of life. Unlike the pagans, however, we can also thank God for an infinitely greater gift: that of the eternal life that comes through Jesus Christ.