The name ‘Easter’ and internet misinformation

Suggestions that the word ‘Easter’ represents some syncretic paganisation of Christianity are not new, but seem to be becoming more common, at least on the various social media feeds that I receive. They are unconvincing. One line seeks to link the word ‘Easter’ with the Babylonian fertility goddess Ishtar. There is a meme circulating that this was some sort of papist plot, replacing the proper link of Easter to the Jewish Passover, and instead linking it to some pagan fertility cult. This is just prejudice. Really straightforwardly, the word ‘Easter’ is English, not Latin; the Church Latin word for the festival is ‘pascha’, which is obviously and directly linked to the Passover. In traditionally Roman Catholic countries, this link is always (to the extent of my knowledge) visible – the French for ‘Easter’ is ‘Pâques’, for example. Amongst major European languages, German and English alone (I believe) use words like ‘Easter’ – if we have to recall the Reformation divides, ‘Easter’ is a Protestant, not a Catholic, usage. The use of the word pre-dates the Reformation, however, so we should see it as a Northern European/Germanic usage. Where does it come from? Bede offers a theory, which has also become popular: it is a borrowing of the name of an old goddess. So to call the resurrection festival ‘Easter’ is an act of syncretism, trying to make the new Christian religion acceptable by linking it with the old pagan celebrations. Bede advanced this theory in De Temp. Rat. xv.9, where he wrote: ‘Eostur-monath, qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a dea illorum quae Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant, nomen habuit, a cujus nomine nunc paschale tempus cognominant, consueto antiquae observationis vocabulo gaudia novae solemnitatis vocantes.’ We should notice two parts to this comment: first, he tells us that in ninth-century England the month in which Easter is (typically) celebrated was called ‘Easter-month’; second, he proposes that this was once in honour of a goddess named ‘Eostre’. The second point seems unlikely: in all the texts and artefacts that have come down to us, this is the one single mention of a goddess named ‘Eostre’. In the book this quotation is found in, Bede is proposing origins for various English names of days and months. Most of them do refer to pagan deities (in modern English: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, January, March, &c.), so I suspect that, not knowing the origin of ‘Eostre-monath’, he guesses at a goddess named ‘Eostre’. The first point is more interesting: Bede tells us straightforwardly that ‘Easter’ is so called just because it is the festival that falls in ‘Eostre-monath’ or ‘Easter-month’. This is the origin of the term. So where does the name of the month come from? It is common to Old English (Ēastermōnað), Old Dutch (ōstermānōth) and Old High German (ōstarmānōd). The etymology is uncertain – it is just the word for (roughly) ‘April’ in these various languages. That said, there is a plausible, if not definite, connection with the Germanic roots behind the English word ‘east’, back to a presumed primitive Indo-European root meaning ‘dawn’ or ‘to become light in the morning’. The OED is sufficiently confident to propose this etymology for the word. ‘Easter’, then, is just the festival that falls during ‘Easter-month’ – and ‘Easter-month’ is the month when the dawn becomes earlier, or stronger, or something like that. Nothing pagan, nothing syncretistic; just a descriptive account of when the resurrection festival falls in the...

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Preaching the resurrection

I heard an excellent Easter sermon from one of our pastors, Liam, on Sunday, which got me thinking. Generally, over the years, I have been disappointed with the preaching I have heard on Easter Sunday – not always, of course, but often enough that I am aware of it as a trend. Further, I recall that when it used to be my lot to preach the Easter sermon I found it a difficult task. My problem over the years has not been hearing ridiculous attempts to make the Easter message into some generic truth about death and rebirth – thankfully, the preachers I have sat under have not been so faithless or so vacuous. They have wanted to preach the wonderful, unique, gospel truth that God raised the crucified one from death. Which makes it all the odder that it often has not worked. I think a good analysis of the problem goes like this: we think of a sermon in terms of a message. The message of Easter is simple: Christ is risen! This is a disputed truth in the contemporary world. So Easter sermons (in evangelical congregations) are often apologetic in nature, seeking to demonstrate that it is plausible to believe that Christ is risen (‘and then 500 people saw him at the same time – mass hallucinations like that just don’t happen…’). I have preached that sermon. I was dissatisfied with it. There is a discussion to be had, of course, about the appropriateness of apologetics in general; even assuming it is a useful thing to do, this piece of apologetics, in this context, will always, I fear, grate badly. It just does not work liturgically. We have (sic, ‘should have’) begun the service with the acclamation ‘Hallelujah! Christ is risen!’ / ‘He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!’ This is reinforced in hymnody (‘Christ the Lord is risen today!’; ‘Endless is the victory thou o’er death hast won!’; …) The only liturgical note sounded is (sic, ‘should be’) confidence and joy (‘Let the church with gladness, hymns of triumph sing – for her Lord now liveth and death hast lost its sting!’) (The proliferation of exclamation marks, a curse of so much bad writing (sic, ‘blogging’) these days, is simply necessary in Easter liturgy, surely?) Then, into this heady liturgical feast of joy and confidence and triumph, comes the preacher asking, with her apologetic sermon, ‘can it be true that Christ is risen? Can we believe this strange and difficult claim?’ Such a sermon cannot work, not in this context. However good the sermon, it will jar and grate, puncture the mood of celebration, deflate the faithful, and feel an inappropriate anticlimax. On Sunday, Liam took as his text and message Peter’s words on Pentecost ‘know that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.’ Instead of trying to convince us of the truth of what we had been proclaiming and celebrating all morning, he tried to explain to us some of the manifold reason why the message was worthy of celebration. This was a good message, liturgically appropriate – it fitted in the context of Easter worship. It was also very well-preached. I was edified and uplifted. I reflect that the best Easter sermon I remember was preached here in St Andrews by George Verwer, the founder of Operation Mobilisation. He is a consummate communicator, of course; he began by commenting how nice it was to preach on Easter Sunday, because he tended only to get the mission slot, and obviously Easter has nothing to do with world mission… As anyone who knows George will understand, however, his obvious aim was simply to excite, to enthuse – he didn’t try to tell us anything we didn’t know, but to make us feel again the wonder of what we did know. That seems to me a far better target for Easter preaching than apology or questioning. Typically, in Baptist life, there will be a closing hymn between the sermon and the benediction that ends the service; let the preacher’s aim be to make the hallelujahs chorused in that hymn twice as loud as those with which the service began. The only message that needs to be heard on that day – perhaps on every day – is ‘Christ is risen!’ and the only possible or desirable response is ‘Hallelujah!’ Why strive, in our preaching, for anything...

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