Behold the Bridegroom Comes at Midnight: Excerpts from Bridegroom Matins
Each year
we are invited once again to traverse the sacred days of the fast and come to
that Week of all weeks - Holy Week. We are invited by the Church to take pause
and reorient our crazy hectic schedule around "church time." Every
year we are guided through this rich, profound and beautiful cycle of services
where we participate in Christ's final days. If we pause enough we enter into
the deep silence of the fear, isolation, sadness of the coming crucifixion of
our Lord. Though the one Subject is Christ Himself, we come to find that it is
us as well who become a vital component to these services. As we are
remembering these events - Judas, the crowds, the Virgins awaiting the
bridegroom, the harlot who anointed Christ's feet - we begin to see that we are
just like these persons. We are the Virgins who are not ready for the
bridegroom. We are Judas who so often are willing to sell Christ for the sake
of our worldly gain, we are the disciples who deny our Lord, and we are the
crowds who boldly proclaim "crucify him!" As a new mission we
continue to take steps to fill out our liturgical cycle and this year we are
adding the services for Monday through Thursday known as Bridegroom Matins.
The first
three days of Holy Week are referred to as "the end". We have just
laid our palm branches down into the silence of Christ's final days. Darkness
and judgment are the theme for the first three days. This is centered around
the the Gospel reading from Great and Holy Tuesday found in Matt. 24:36 - 26:2.
This is the parable of the ten virgins. Here we are urged not to be like the
five foolish virgins who were not prepared for the coming of the bridegroom.
The troparion hymn sung on these three days:
Behold the bridegroom comes at midnight, and
blessed is the servant whom he shall find watching; and again, unworthy is the
servant whom He shall find heedless.
Beware, therefore, O my soul, do not be weighed
down with sleep, lest you be given over to death, and lest you be shut out of
the Kingdom.
But rouse yourself, crying: "Holy! Holy!
Holy! art Thou, O our God. Through the Theotokos have mercy on us!"
Also
another hymn:
Thy bridal chamber I see adorned, O my
Savior, but I have no wedding garment that I may enter. O Giver of Light,
enlighten the vesture of my soul, and save me.
As we
enter into Holy Week we are overwhelmed with the sense that we have nothing to
offer our Lord and that we have wasted our life and are asleep and that we have
missed the coming of the bridegroom. It is only through the grace and mercy of
our Lord's voluntary Passion that we are made worthy to enter. We hear this
echoed on Monday evening:
How shall I, the unworthy one, appear in the
splendor of Thy saints?
For if I dare enter Thy bridal chamber with
them my garments will betray me: they are unfit for a wedding.
The angels will cast me out in chains.
Cleans the filth of my soul, O Lord, and save
me in Thy love for mankind.
O Christ the Bridegroom, my soul has
slumbered in laziness.
I have no lamp aflame with virtues.
Like the foolish virgins I wander aimlessly
when it is time for work.
But do not close Thy compassionate heart to
me, O Master.
Rouse me, shake off my heavy sleep.
Lead me with the wise virgins into the bridal
chamber, that I may hear the pure voice of those that feast and cry
unceasingly: O Lord, glory to Thee!
It is
important to let the full weight of these services permeate us. Let the heavy
truth of seeing ourselves as we truly are lead us to glorify Christ's passion
and cause us to cry out as we will on Holy Friday, "show us also Thy
Glorious resurrection!"
By Fr. Christopher Foley
A Prayer for Christ's Assistance and Thanks
for His Mercies
St. Symeon the New Theologian:
But, O
Lord, guide of those gone astray, the unerring path of those who come to You,
turn us all around and place us before Your ladder, and direct our hands with
Your own hand to take hold of it, and enable us to raise ourselves from the
earth and to step onto the first rung, so that we may know that we have
somehow, sometime, taken hold of something with our hands and have raised
ourselves a little from the earth. For we are obliged to ascend, just a little,
at first to You, in order that You, the good Master, may come down from so far
away and unite Yourself to us. Show us, Master, the door at the forecourt of
Your Kingdom, so that we may knock patiently at it until the gate should open
to us by virtue of our voluntary death, and we enter within and knock one by
one at the gates and open them. May You Yourself, hearing our groans and the
beating of our breasts, hurry to come down from your high chambers, You the
greatly compassionate and merciful God, that we may hear the sounds of Your
all-immaculate feat and know that You are opening the innermost gates, closed
to sinners, and drawing near us and saying: "Who is he who is
knocking?" and that, answering with cries and tears, we may reply to You
with trembling and joy: "We are, Master, we the unworthy, the wretched,
Your cast-off and wicked servants, we who until now have been wandering astray
among mountains and cliffs and ravines. We are those who have senselessly
soiled Your holy Baptism, who denied our covenants with You. We are those who
have fled away and even deserted voluntarily to Your enemy who plots against
our souls. Now, though, having remembered You and Your love for mankind, we
have run away from there and, weary with labor, have come to You in great fear
and trembling.
Forgive
and be not angry with us, Master, but with mercy and compassion for us wretched
ones open to us, Lord, and do not call to mind our evils, neither bear rancour
for our ingratitude, for we have stood long hours in knocking, nor
misunderstand us, Your servants, lest, having been slighted, we turn backwards.
We have grown weary beating on the doors to the forecourts of Your Kingdom.
Open to us, You Who by nature love mankind, have compassion on us. For if only
You open to us the door of Your mercy by a little, who will not shudder at seeing
you? Who will not fall prostrate in fear and trembling and beseech Your mercy?
Who, seeing You Who have ten thousand times ten thousand angels and a thousand
thousand archangels and thrones and powers, abandoning the heights and coming
down to us, and meeting and opening to us, and both welcoming us graciously and
falling upon our necks and kissing us, who will not immediately wounded to the
quick and undone as if he were dead? And his bones will be poured out on the
earth like water, and he will weep day and night reckoning up the ocean of Your
compassion and goodness, and reflecting the glory and splendor of Your
countenance. Glory be to You, Who have arranged all things thus. Glory to You,
Who have been well-pleased to be seen by and united with us. Glory to You, Who
for the sake of Your great compassion are revealed and seen by us, You Who by
nature are invisible even to the heavenly powers themselves. Glory to You,
Whose mercy toward us is unspeakable, Who have deigned through repentance both
to abide and to walk with us. Through the payers of our Holy Fathers, O Lord
Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Source: http://holycrossoca.org/newslet/0804.html
Seven Parables and Stories for the Week: Issue 27
Poison of Rage
A gloomy
neighbor visited an elder.
– I
suffer from insomnia, – he complained. – That’s because the small birds out
there keep chirping all night long!
– You’re
the reason of your own suffering, – the elder replied. – You poison all your
nights with rage towards the innocent little birds. Singing is their life! If
you had chosen not to be mad at them but to enjoy listening to their songs,
their chirping would become your best lullaby!
These things have I spoken unto you, that my
joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full (John 15:11)
The Nature of a Wolf
There was
a forest where all animals were very afraid of the terrible wolf. They would
run away as soon as they heard him coming.
The wolf
gathered all the community of the forest one day.
– I don’t
want our forest to be ruled by fear. Don’t look at me as if I were an
insatiable beast and don’t run away from me. I won’t eat strong animals. I’ll
be fine with sick and weak ones, – the wolf promised. – Bring them to me, and I
won’t touch the rest!
The
animals agreed. They brought weak and ill animals to the wolf but he ate the
strong animals, too!
– Why do
you eat the strong animals? You promised not to, didn’t you?
– Why are
your “strong” animals weak, too? It’s none of my business, – the wolf retorted.
You
mustn’t negotiate with the Satan. He will fool you anyway.
… the devil… was a murderer from the
beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When
he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of
it. (John 8:44)
The Soft Word of God and the Hard Heart
When some
monks asked Abba Poemen about heart numbness, he gave them the following
example:
– Water
is soft but a rock is hard; however, if there is a water pipe above the rock,
water drops leave a trail in the rock little by little. Similarly, God’s Word
is soft, and our hearts are hard; however, if one hears the Word of God often,
his heart opens up to accept the fear of God..
The Skete Paterikon
Can you
see what an insane word does? I’ll not leave you without an example of a good
word, either. A faint-hearted soldier was sent on a scouting mission during a
war. Everyone knew that he was fearful and they laughed at him when they
learned where the sergeant was sending him. There was only one soldier who
didn’t laugh. He approached his comrade with words of support. The
faint-hearted soldier said, “I’ll die, the enemy is near!” — “Don’t be afraid,
brother, God is nearer,” the good soldier said in response. These words were
like a large bell that tolled in the faint-hearted soldier’s soul. This bell
kept ringing till the end of the war. In the end, the timid and fearful soldier
returned home wearing many medals and military decorations for his courage.
This is how just a single kind word made all the difference: “Don’t be afraid:
God is nearer.”
Saint Nikolaj of Serbia. Missionary Letters.
Letter 70, to a humble man who confessed that he had sinned in his words
The King and His Wise Advisor
There was
a mighty king who had a wise advisor. He always took his advisor wherever he
went.
One day,
the king went hunting and had an awful misfortune: he lost one finger on his
hand while shooting. He was furious.
– Sire,
everything happens for a reason! – the advisor tried to calm the king down.
However,
the king was even more furious upon hearing these words. He ordered to throw
the advisor in jail and give him only water.
Some time
later, the king decided to go hunting again. This time, he set forth to distant
parts of the country where there were many wild animals, as rumors had it.
Unluckily, there were violent savages in those lands, too. The savages attacked
the king and his escort. They were pagans and practised bloody sacrifices.
The
savages grabbed the king and dragged him to the chief priest. He was thrilled:
– Now
we’ll appease gods at last!
When the
priest laid the king on the sacrificial table and prepared to stab him with a
knife, he suddenly noticed that there was one finger missing on the poor king’s
hand. He was outraged.
– Gods
deserve only the best! – he yelled at his fellow tribesmen. – You’ve brought
that poor thing to me instead! Look, he has a finger missing!
They
threw the king back to the wild forest. Hardly did he find his way back to his
capital when he ran to the wise advisor.
– You
were right! I lost one finger but I was left alive! – the king was saying and
weeping. – You’ve had to go through so much pain, too. You’ve had to spend so
much time in jail.
–
Everything that happens is good, – the advisor responded. – If I hadn’t been in
jail, I would definitely have gone hunting with you, with unpredictable
results.
Sparrow
Two
little sisters heard the biblical account about the expulsion of Adam and Eve
from the Garden of Eden and told their father:
— Daddy,
if Lena and I had been in the paradise, we would have never eaten the forbidden
fruit because God had prohibited to touch it. Right, Dad?
— You’re
right, — the father smiled and turned off the light in the daughters’ bedroom.
The
father got up very early the following morning. He caught a sparrow in the
backyard and put it into a pot. He woke the girls up and showed them the pot
that he had put on the windowsill of an open kitchen window. The father said:
— Please
don’t open the pot until I get back home from work. When I’m back, I’ll show
you what’s inside. If you’re obedient, I’ll buy you a new toy.
The
father left for work, and the children stayed home alone. They were doing their
best to distract themselves from the little pot in the kitchen but they were so
excited and curious that at the end, Masha, the older sister, persuaded Lena,
the younger sister who was afraid that the father would be angry with them, to
look into the pot.
— We’ll
peek inside and close the cover, — she said. — Dad won’t even know.
As soon
as Lena opened the pot, the sparrow flew out of the window. The girls were
scared and shut the empty pot quickly.
When the
father returned in the evening, he saw that the pot was empty and said:
— Well,
my little Eves, you couldn’t help peeking inside the pot, could you? That was
how Eve couldn’t help tasting the fruit of knowledge of good and evil.
— Dad,
what was that tree like and why was it forbidden to eat its fruit? — Masha
asked.
— It was
just a regular tree with edible fruit but the first people broke the
commandment of the Lord and chose evil over good because all evil starts with
disobedience, while all good starts from obedience. God would have taught Adam
and Eve a lot of good things, if they had been obedient. This sparrow was your
tree of knowledge of good and evil today, and you didn’t obey me, either.
You’ve failed the Adam and Eve’s temptation.
Priest
and Schemamonk John from Greece told me a parable about a family who lived on a
desert island in the middle of an ocean after having been shipwrecked. All
family members ate roots and grass and lived in a cave. The children did not
remember when and how they got to the island. They forgot their native land and
did not know what bread, milk, or fruit was. One day, a boat with four natives
landed at the island. The shipwrecked were very happy and decided to leave the
island immediately. However, the boat was so small that it could not transport
the entire family. That was why the father of the family left the island first.
The mother and the children were crying as they bade farewell to their beloved
father.
The
father comforted his family by saying, “Don’t cry. Life’s better in our native
country, and we’ll meet again soon.”
Soon, the
boat returned and took the mother away. The children were crying again.
– Don’t
cry, my children, – the mother said, – we’ll meet in the better land soon.
Finally,
the boat came for the kids. When the last dwellers of the island found
themselves in the boundless sea, they were scared of their dark-skinned helpers
all the way. Imagine how happy they were when they met their parents on the
shore!
“Dear
children, – their father told them, – our relocation from the desert island to
the fertile land has a profound meaning: we all have to face a passage from
this world into the better world. Our earth is like an island. The country
we’re in slightly resembles the Heaven. The tumultuous passage from the island
to this land is like death. The boat is the coffin, which will be carried by
four strong men in black clothes. When it is time for us to say goodbye to the
earth, those who are pious, who love God and obey his will, will not be afraid
of the passage: death for them is merely a journey into the better life.”
Hieromonk Eutychius (Dovganiuk)
Translated from: https://azbyka.ru/days
An Important Hymn from The Great and Holy Tuesday
Come, O faithful, let us work zealously for
the Master; for he distributes wealth to his servants.
Let each of us, according to his or her
ability increase the talent of grace:
let one be adorned in wisdom through good
works; let another celebrate a service in splendor.
Ihe one distributes his wealth to the poor;
the other communicates the word to those untaught.
Thus we shall increase what has been
entrusted to us, and, as faithful stewards of grace, we shall be accounted
worthy of the Master’s joy.
Make us worthy of this, Christ our God, in
your love for mankind.
As more
and more people attend and thoughtfully follow the services of Holy Week, many
are struck by the incomparably rich hymnography, often sung in unique and
evocative melodies. Many of us have favorite hymns, which we greet as friends
when they come along each year. There are the landmark hymns of the Bridegroom
services, repeated for several nights running. There are, of course, the
unforgettable moments of Holy Thursday: “Of Thy Mystical Supper!” The Twelve
Gospels! Then Friday: the Burial Shroud! The Lamentations!… Then Saturday and
the victorious Prokeimenon! These are like lanterns, lighting our way forward
in an otherwise dark terrain.
One of my
own favorites is a humbler little hymn (blink and you’ve missed it for the
year) sung with the Aposticha at Matins and Vespers on Holy Tuesday. [The hymn’s text is at the beginning of this post.] Why do we sing such a hymn
during Holy Week? Let’s spend a minute examining its liturgical context before
looking at it more closely.
By the
time we sing this hymn, we have entered squarely into the journey to Christ’s
life-giving Passion. We have traveled six weeks of Great Lent. We have
celebrated the victorious entry of Our Lord into Jerusalem (a bitter victory:
Jesus knowingly enters the city where he is to be betrayed and slain). We have
heard him preaching with increased intensity against civil and religious
hypocrisy and injustice. But as we follow Jesus’s journey, we also direct
attention at ourselves. As we Orthodox always do in our penitential hymnography
(for example, in the Canon of St. Andrew of Crete), we apply all that
hypocrisy, all the examples of pride, lust, murderous intent, to our own lives
as we live them. It is not a pretty picture. So we ask God’s forgiveness and
beg him to help us to become better human beings.
During
Holy Week, this sort of penitence is brought to a high level of intensity, a
dosage that we cannot sustain for long. But here we are pushed to our limits,
because Our Lord himself, the King of Glory, who made the heavens and the
earth, is on his way to being betrayed, abandoned, and slaughtered. Matters do
not get any more serious than that. We have to make sure we are paying full
attention.
That is
why, at the Bridegroom services, usually celebrated on Sunday, Monday, and
Tuesday evenings of Holy Week, we pray for several things surrounding the theme
of bring ourselves into realization of who we are and what is happening:
– We ask God to “illumine the vesture of our
souls,” to purify us, to give us appropriate clothing in order to celebrate
properly the Feast of Feasts.
– We remind our own selves to be wakeful and
watchful, rouse ourselves out of our slumber, to penetrate the usual half-awake
state of our minds and hearts.
– We contemplate scriptural images as lessons
or as inspiration. The common theme to all these services is that of the
Bridegroom (Christ) who comes in the middle of the night and finds some who are
prepared, others for whom it is now too late. But on different evenings we sing
about the withered fig tree, the betrayal of Judas, and – as a positive image –
the repentant harlot who wipes Jesus’s feet with her tears and hair.
It is
within this broader context, then, that we come to that Holy Tuesday hymn, in
which we urge each other to do the particular work that God has given us to do.
Let’s look through it to see what it is saying, and why people may be attracted
to it.
– We goad each other to work zealously. Don’t
almost do something, or just thing about doing it, or do it in a half-baked
way. Do it, and do it well for the sake of God.
– Notice that God gives the wedding garment.
God gives the talent. Without this initial gift, we have nothing, we are
nothing. But once we realize that God has filled our otherwise empty vessels,
it is very much up to us to take up that gift and to act on it.
– When God distributes his gifts, he is not
using a cookie cutter to form identical little shapes. He is not drawing a
uniform pattern for us to imitate like robots. We are different from each
other; we do not strive to conform to a single model, even if sometimes the
image of a virtuous person in the Church’s Tradition seems frustratingly
uniform. In iconography and spiritual literature (depending on where we’re
looking) we might find a preponderance of monks, bishops, and virgins. But if
we look closer, we find a message applicable to school teachers, social
workers, bankers, moms, dads, writers, sanitation workers – people from all
walks of life and different talents.
– When it begins enumerating tasks, our hymn
encourages us to “do good work” – whatever our station of life, whatever our
vocation. Then it identifies specific vocations – but let us take note how
these are both particular and universal in character.
– One “celebrates a service in splendor.” (When
I was sacristan during my student days at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, I watched as
Fr. Paul Lazor, the consummate liturgical celebrant, made a large and
meaningful sign of the cross over himself during that line.) Although this
verse does carry a particular, clerical meaning, doesn’t it also pertain to our
corporate celebration of the liturgy? All of us celebrate the liturgy in
splendor when we participate meaningfully in it. Going still further, can this
not also pertain to any way in which we – whether lay or ordained – as
“priests” offer the world to God, making our whole life a creative service of
splendor?
– In the Divine Liturgy we pray for “those who
remember the poor.” Is helping the poor, then, something that someoneelse
always does? No. Although we recognize realistically that not everyone is
called to make his or her whole life a service to the poor, none of us is off
the hook in the basic, universal, Christ-imitating vocation of ministry to the
poor, solidarity with the outcast, speaking out against injustice.
– While teaching the Word applies in a
particular way to teachers and catechists, don’t we all impart knowledge and
wisdom – both explicitly and implicitly Christian Truth – in our various vocations
(not least those of us who are parents or godparents)?
Wherever
we are, whatever we do, whatever our station in life our task is to build upon
what we have been given. First, of course, we have to identify the gift, and
that is not always simple. But by understanding the gift and recalling that it
indeed comes from God himself, we can build on it. The gospels tell us that
wasting our talents is one of the things that seriously displeases God. But we
pray that, if we recognize and work with our gifts, we will be “deemed worthy
of the Master’s joy,” a joy that is beyond anything that we can imagine.
Source: https://svotssynaxis.com/2012/04/10/holy-tuesday-a-hymn-of-invitation/
Christ, Church, Husband, And Wife
“For the husband is the head of the wife, as
also Christ is head of the Church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore
just as the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own
husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the
Church and gave Himself for it” (Ephesians 5:23)
Some
brides-to-be resent this epistle read at every Orthodox Church wedding. They
think it’s sexist—not politically correct in this era of liberation of women.
But that objection is misdirected. This advice of St. Paul is not about
subordination of woman to man, nor is it about control. This is about love. The
holy apostle is not putting wives down; he’s raising the vision of husbands to
a spiritual awareness of responsibility.
It’s a
daring equation, comparing the husband with Christ. Can a Christian who wears a
cross at his neck and hangs a cross in his bedroom not comprehend the great,
sacrificial love that Jesus Christ has demonstrated for His Church? There is
not an atom of selfishness in it. Who reading the gospels can find somewhere or
some word of the loving Lord that suggests, “What’s in it for Me?” Show me a
place that implies the Church doing something for Christ, rather than what
Christ is doing for the Church.
St. Paul
is speaking to all married men. Do you expect or even demand obedience from
your wives? Look up at Christ on the cross. Will you ever do that for her? You
insist that your wife love you exclusively. That’s your right as a husband and
her obligation as your wife. Then you must first demonstrate your willingness
to lay down your life in her behalf. If it comes to one of you making a
sacrifice for the sake of the family, step out smartly and be the one who
offers his life for wife and family. Yes, granted, St. Paul wrote that the
husband is the head of the wife, but that’s not all he wrote on the subject.
The love of Christ for the Church is your measure of your own adoration of your
wife. God forbid that you ever terrorize her, intimidate her or control her by
temper tantrums or any of the more subtle mind control methods rampant in our
culture. You were commissioned by Christ in the sacred sacrament of marriage to
love and honor her—she is ever your queen, and you must look for the crown
still worn on her head, albeit invisibly.
Your love
for her must be always pure and sacred. She is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and
you must do nothing to defile that living temple. She is baptized in the
blessed water of Jordan. It takes nothing from the romance or the love act to
treat your wife as a being precious in the sight of the Lord. Any expression of
love that degrades, humiliates or plain uses the partner is unworthy of your
marriage. Any violation of your marital obligations to one another, adultery or
lewdness, will invite the serpent of evil into your bed, cause you deceit and
hypocrisy, and reduce you to shame and self-rejection.
True love
will be constantly in search of ways to please your spouse, not yourself. Real
affection is given through a glance, a touch, a card or flower. This woman is
not your cook, your washerwoman or maid. She is far more than the one who cares
for your children. If that’s all she is to you, you are unworthy of calling
yourself her husband.
If as you
heard at the wedding, you “leave father and mother and cleave to your wife,”
she has become your very body. You are one flesh and blood with her. You can no
more separate yourself from her that you would hack off your right arm. Despite
our wicked society, you don’t change partners; you live with the one that God
gave you.
Most of
all, your love is a reflection of the love of Christ for your spiritual family
and the Church of which you all are a part. Your home is an extension of your
parish, a chapel where love is the binding ingredient between your family
members and with the loving Lord and yourself.
Source: https://oca.org/reflections/berzonsky/christ-church-husband-and-wife
Easter, Pascha or Both?
Many
Orthodox Christians insist "Pascha" or any derivitive of the word
Passover is the only correct name for the celebration of the Resurrection of
Christ, among possibly other liturgical words for the feast, but insist the
word "Easter" is innapropriate because it supposedly has pagan
origins. Does it truly have pagan origins that would prohibit its use? Or are
there in fact justifiable reasons to allow for "Pascha" and
"Easter" to both be used with a clean conscience. Since
"Pascha" is without controversy, we will examine these things for the
word "Easter".
Etymological relation vs. etymological
descendance
The word
"Easter" has some etymological baggage. Some Christians are wary of
using the word because of its supposed pagan origin. The Venerable Bede
(672-735) asserted that the word "Easter" derived from
"Eostre", the goddess of the Saxons (De Ratione Temporum). In modern
times Alexander Hislop connected Easter to the Babylonian goddess Astarte (The
Two Babylons, 1858). Apparently, there was indeed a goddess by the name
"Eostre" ("Ostara" in German). Hence it seems that
"Easter" and "Eostre" are etymologically related. However,
it is foolish to take etymological relation as evidence of a "pagan
connection" between "Easter" and "Eostre". To see the
foolishness of this, consider the following example: There was a Christian
theologian in the third century by the name of "Lucian" of Antioch.
There is also the name "Lucifer" ascribed to Satan (Isaiah 14:12).
Both "Lucian" and "Lucifer" are derived from the Latin word
for "light (lucis)". This means that "Lucian" and
"Lucifer" are etymologically related. However, neither is an
etymological descendant of the other, which means neither name is derived from
the other name. Each name is a separate etymological descendant of the root
word for light, "lucis". Thus it would be foolish to say, "A
Christian should never call himself Lucian because the word is related to
Lucifer!" Etymological relation between a negative word (i.e. Lucifer) and
the impugned word (i.e. Lucian) does not mean anything. The issue is whether
the impugned word is an etymological descendant of the negative word. As for "Lucian",
it is not an etymological descendant of "Lucifer". Likewise, Easter
is not an etymological descendant of Eostre but rather a separate etymological
descendant of a common root word which in itself carries a neutral connotation.
"Easter" is derived from "East"
The root
of "Easter" is "east" just as the root of
"Ostern" ("Easter" in German) is "Ost"
("east" in German). Likewise, the root of "Eostre"
(English) and "Ostara" (German) is the word for "east."
Thus both "Easter" and "Eostre" are derived from the word
"east". This means neither "Easter" nor "Eostre"
has to be an etymological descendant of the other, but each could be a separate
etymological descendant of the word "east". The etymology of
"east" gives us clues as to why both pagans and Christians wished to
use the word "east" for their respective purposes. The etymology of
the Saxon word "east" is:
- "O.E.
east, from P.Gmc. *aus-to-, *austra- "east, toward the sunrise" (cf.
Du. oost, Ger. Ost, O.N. austr "from the east"), from PIE *aus-
"dawn" (cf. Skt. ushas "dawn," Gk. aurion
"morning," O.Ir. usah, Lith. auszra "dawn," L. aurora
"dawn," auster "south"), lit. "to shine." The
east is the direction in which dawn breaks." (Online Etymological
Dictionary)
- "In
the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week,
came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre." (Matthew
28:1)
-
"And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto
the sepulchre at the rising of the sun." (Mark 16:2)
The day
of Christ' resurrection was in the morning at the rising of the sun. In fact,
it was not only a physical morning but also a spiritual morning because the
light of salvation had come into the world. Christ began to rise as the
"Sun of righteousness" at his resurrection. The following passages
compare Christ with the rising of the sun:
-
"But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with
healing in his wings;" (Malachi 4:2)
- "We
have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed,
as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day
star arise in your hearts." (2 Peter 1:19)
- "I
am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star."
(Revelation 22:16)
With
these details of Christ and his resurrection, there is no mystery as to why
Anglo-Saxon Christians called the day of his resurrection "Easter," a
word derived from "east," which means dawn, sunrise, morning. Just as
the sun rises from the darkness of night, the "Sun of righteousness"
rose (resurrected) from the darkness of death. Christ's resurrection was the
sunrise of all sunrises - hence, Easter. This association of Christ's
resurrection with the dawn is not pagan but based on biblical narrative and
symbolism.
Christians reclaimed the true meaning of
"Easter"
Anglo-Saxon
Christians may have given the name "Easter" to the day of Christ's
resurrection to identify Christ as the true God of sunrise (in the sense of
being Creator of the sun as well as spiritually being the "Sun of
righteousness"). Thus the word "Easter" stands as a testimony of
the Anglo-Saxon Christians' rejection of the goddess in reception of the true
God, Jesus Christ. It is counterproductive to suggest that Christians should
abandon the word "Easter". Why should we give the pagans a monopoly
over a word which signifies the dawn, one of God's most stunning works of
creation? The funny thing is that many Christians who oppose the use of the
word "Easter" still celebrate "Good Friday". Yet the word
"Friday" is based on the name of a pagan goddess. The word
"Friday" means "Day of Frige" - Frige being the name of a
Norse goddess. "Good Friday" literally means "Good day of Frige
(the goddess)". Some Christians say that Christ rose on
"Saturday", yet "Saturday" is also derived from the pagan
god Saturnus. If one would actually like to avoid a "pagan
connection", he would be wiser to avoid using the words "Friday"
and "Saturday" rather than the Christian word "Easter".
Avoiding all of these words, of course, is an impossibility if we wish to
communicate with others regarding the days of the week. We just have to admit
that the English language is the language of a people who were once pagan and
that there are many vestiges of pagan etymology in English. It is only by God's
redemptive grace that the words of our mouths (notwithstanding the occasional
pagan etymologies) are found acceptable in His sight:
"Let
the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Thy
sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer." (Psalm 19:14)
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