Easter and History

Order of Service - Script 

for Sunday: April 9, 2023

The relationship of Easter to history makes a fascinating study. The holiday itself has an interesting history. 

NIUU, Jeanie Donaldson, Pastor Fred 

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Prelude - arrangement by Jeanie Donaldson 

of Hymn #61 - “Lo the Earth Awakes Again” 

Welcome and Announcements: 

Blessed and Happy Easter to everyone! 

This wonderful holiday has roots in the ancient world, spanning nearly every human culture and religion. 

It celebrates the victory of life and joy over death and sorrow. 

For Easter and every day we are all invited to come into this circle of love and compassion, and to come into this community where we can dream and believe in those dreams - 

All are Welcome to North Idaho Unitarian Universalists where we accept, we support, we transform:  Ourselves, Our Community. Our world.   

Lighting the Chalice: 

For Holy Days on Which We Recall the Old Stories

By Dillman Baker Sorrells

For holy days on which we recall the old stories, we light the flame.

For Passover which reminds us of the courage and strength of those seeking freedom in the past, we light the flame.

For Easter which reminds us that love is our greatest challenge, we light the flame.

For gathering today in this sacred space, we light the flame.

For the opportunity to be together as a community, to remember the past, to plan for our future, to be alive in our present.

Opening Words: ­­­

Call to Worship on Easter

By Elizabeth M Strong

Out of the earth

Rises light,

Rises life,

Rises spring.

May we join with the miracle that is springtime, and enter into life with lightness and joy.

Out of the spirit

Rises faith,

Rises hope,

Rises love.

May we join with the miracle that is Easter time, and enter into life with hope and love.

Let us resurrect with spring, let us resurrect with the spirit and enter into renewed life as we gather into our time of worship together this Easter morning.

Hymn #361: Enter, Rejoice, and Come In 

Verse 1 - Enter, rejoice, and come in.

Enter, rejoice, and come in.

Today will be a joyful day;

enter, rejoice, and come in.

Verse 2 - Open your ears to the sonuug…

Verse 3 - Open your hearts ev’ryone…

Verse 4 - Don’t be afraid of some change…

Verse 5 - Enter, rejoice, and come in…

Covenant: 

Love is the spirit of this church, and service its law

This is our great covenant:

To dwell together in peace,

To seek truth in love,

And to help one another. 

Joys and Concerns (with lighting of candles of caring) 

Story: 

It Began with a Stone

By Lisa Fischbeck

When some people think of Easter, they think of a bunny rabbit. Others would point to other fertility symbols and signs of Spring, springing forth out of the ordinary, the plain, the seemingly dead: butterflies, flowers, and the like. Christians might think of the empty cross, or of a cross with flowers on it: the instrument of shameful death, transformed into something else.

But in the midst of all those other things, I think about the stone—not as a symbol of the resurrection itself, but as a means of reminding us to open ourselves to the journey, to persevere with the understanding and knowing and embracing that life-changing, world-shifting, reality-jolting event.

If we want to persist with an Easter bunny, perhaps in addition to the jelly beans and fertility symbols, the Easter bunny might start delivering geodes! Stones that look like one thing—plain enough—but on closer inspection, and with a bit of perseverance and some hard knocks, reveal entire and more glorious dimensions.

The stone in the Easter story reminds us that there is more going on in this resurrection event than any of us first can grasp or understand. The stone reminds us that with God there are possibilities beyond our logic, beyond our wisdom, beyond our puny known world. 

The stone reminds us that in the midst of death we are in life. Alleluia!

 

Meditation: 

An Easter Meditation

By Sam Trumbore

Eternal spirit, we witness

bringing green growth throwing out tiny tendrils seeking support;

sprouting thin twigs reaching for the bright golden sun;

guiding new tubers seeking water in dark, sandy soil,

Be in and amongst us this Easter morning.

We gather this morning to celebrate the triumph of life over death.

The body can be killed but the spirit cannot be quenched.

Only yesterday had we given up all hope of the promise of the coming divine realm

and today we are renewed and inspired as we realize it is now already here.

This morning we remember that pain, suffering and death are not ends

but can be scary underground passageways to more abundant life—

If ... we have the courage to face our fear and crawl through

to be pushed and pulled by the mind narrowing forces of lust, hate, and

confusion.

This morning we renew our dedication to act from our love rather than our fear,

We renew our faith in the inherent dignity and worth of all humanity—

including ourselves—which cannot be removed from anyone

and seek the nerve to face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

which may come our way.

In our moments of defeat and surrender,

may we turn away from the paths of revenge, denial, and cynicism.

May we remember the eternal truth spun into the web of life:

our wounds can become sacred incarnational teaching

of the wisdom embedded in the story of resurrection.

Let us celebrate together this morning,

the one who never gives up even in the darkest night of winter,

our blue green planet earth, resurrected anew each spring. 

Hymn #61 - “Lo the Earth Awakes Again” 

Lo, the earth awakes again — Alleluia!
From the winter’s bond and pain.
Alleluia! Bring we leaf and flower and spray — Alleluia!
to adorn this happy day. Alleluia!

Once again the word comes true,
Alleluia! All the earth shall be made new. Alleluia!
Now the dark, cold days are o’er, Alleluia!
Spring and gladness are before. Alleluia!

Change, then, mourning into praise, Alleluia!
And, for dirges, anthems raise. Alleluia!
How our spirits soar and sing, Alleluia!
How our hearts leap with the spring! Alleluia!

Sermon: 

The celebration of the high holy day of Easter long predates Christianity. 

That recognition right up front tells us all that the holiday is not limited in its meaning to the tradition of any one religious group alone. 

There are also pagan traditions surrounding Easter. 

The primary pagan traditions concern the Spring Equinox in much the same way that pagan traditions around Christmas concern the Winter Solstice. 

Nature centered or Earth centered spirituality are important parts of human life well recognized and even celebrated by UU’s. 

Oestre, Eostre, and Ostara are ancient forms of the word, Easter. 

In the terms of the Christian religion, Easter is a strong affirmation of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. 

Many religious people, Muslims for example, would see the crucifixion of Jesus in and of itself as a repudiation by God of the things that Jesus stood for. 

After all, they tell us, God could have prevented that tragic and painful end. 

Then they ask why God did not do so? 

Many Muslims believe that God changed the sight, the vision of the witnesses of the Cross and Resurrection. 

In a quote from the Qu’ran, it’s spelled out quite clearly. 

Sayar said, in the fourth Sura, verse 157: “They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him.”

The Bible is considered a holy book in Islam. 

How then can this verse in the Koran be reconciled with the accounts of Jesus’ death in theGospels? 

Sayar said the key is in the phrase that follows “nor did they crucify him”: “though it was made to look like that to them.” 

Unlike the Christian view of the death of Jesus, most Muslims believe he was raised to Heaven without being put on the cross and God created a resemblance to appear exactly like Jesus who was crucified instead of Jesus, and he ascended bodily to Heaven, there to remain until his Second Coming in the End days. 

There are many different views of the meaning of Easter. 

The Muslim view seems to me to be one of the most unique. 

As mentioned previously in today’s sermon, there was also a pagan view. 

Prior to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, (whatever that means to history), there was an ancient celebration of the renewal of life. 

Ostara is a contemporary pagan name for the ancient celebration as well as a name of the goddess associated with it. 

The renewal of life with the coming of Spring has long been the focus of faith based celebrations.

Those surely evolved into the holy day and season we know as Easter. 

To say that the holy day and season evolved in this way is in no way to disparage Christianity or its celebration of Easter. 

At the same time, to understand more of the history of the holy day is to deepen our appreciation of its meaning for our lives and our world. 

Every morning brings new hope that a new day will bring opportunities to heal many things that have gone wrong. 

How much more the coming of Spring with its warmth and new growth can bring strong hope! 

Of course, none of this is to say that other seasons are bad or lacking in hope. 

It’s simply that we (in the Northern Hemisphere) are now in High Springtime with the arrival of this Holy Day of Easter, and so we are focused on this time of the year that we are in. 

[Easter cold snap?]

The Goddess, the feminine expression of Divine Being, has long been associated with Easter. 

Mary, the Mother of Jesus surely played an important role in the Easter Story as it is remembered by Christians. 

We need only think of the Pietá by Michelangelo, depicting Mary holding the crucified body of her Son after his death. 

Then on Easter morning, we remember how the planned anointing of Jesus’ body included His Mother, and those plans were interrupted by the Empty Tomb. 

The Emptiness of the Tomb is a sign of hope. 

It is also a sign of something familiar to us all: 

There are many things we do not know. 

It is no guarantee of the Easter story as it is most familiar and most often told. 

I guess that statement could be considered obvious. 

Even so, it is an important reminder of the history of Easter as an event and as a holiday. 

What really happened is not possible to know precisely, even by those who believe the Biblical narrative literally. 

It is simply impossible to reconcile the four versions of the Easter story as it is told in the Four Gospels. 

I have to admit that I find more probability that something important happened on that first Easter morning than I would be able to believe if the four accounts were identical. 

An amazing story told by four people exactly the same way seems more like something made up than the story told with important variations. 

It’s just the way we human beings are. 

When we witness really important things happening, we often have our own versions of what happened. 

The relationship of Easter to the Goddess is one of my favorite signs of the universality of the story. 

Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was not a Goddess, and she is still not considered a Goddess, even by the people most devoted to her. 

At the same time, she is a representative of womanhood as a sign of important, even holy events that affect us human beings. 

The ancient Goddess I personally associate most with Easter and Springtime is Persephone of the ancient Greeks. 

Hers is a beautiful story, beautifully told in a children’s book published by Eerdmans. 

In her story we learn how Hades, god of the underworld, whose very name became synonymous with the place of the dead, abducted her and carried her away to his home below the earth. 

In effect, the goddess Persephone died. 

Her mother, the Earth Mother goddess, Demeter, grieved so deeply that the Earth itself was cursed. 

Only when Persephone returned did the Earth come back to life. 

It is a familiar story we all have lived, in that earth seems to die in the Winter and returns to life in the Spring. 

The cycle of death and rebirth is the heart of the ancient celebration of Ostara, of Persephone, and of renewal. 

It is the very reason that we celebrate Easter with flowers, baby chicks and rabbits, and decorated eggs. 

All those things and many others are symbols of new life. 

The symbolism of new life is important for us all, because, regardless of our own circumstances, there are times in which we need renewal and hope. 

Our times for our nation are like that. 

We need to renew our faith and hope in the democratic processes that have helped us develop the freedoms we hold so dear. 

Freedom and democracy are facing challenges. 

MAGA Evangelical Christians are busily substituting a politician whose name is spoken as little as possible for the One they long considered their savior. 

Some are claiming that his prosecution is his persecution, although there is a huge difference between those similar words. 

We shall see how all of this plays out as history unfolds. 

As we celebrate Easter, we can renew our hope that our great nation will indeed continue to be free and our people can learn once again to treat each other with respect, rejoicing in our differences instead of seeing each other as enemies because of them. 

The arrival of Springtime and Easter can bring hope to our hearts in many ways. 

Amen 

Let it be 

Blessed Be

Congregational Response 

Offering Information 

Charity of the Month:

Partnering 4 Progress

 

Our 2023 Goals

Education – increase school attendance with water projects, sanitary towel distribution, and high school and college scholarships.

Water – coordinate safe drinking water projects to reduce waterborne illnesses.

Health – provide supplements to 30 malnourished infants weekly along with education and cooking instruction for caregivers to reduce child mortality. Also provide educational opportunities for health providers and empower them to become agents of change in their communities.

Economic Development – support community-driven solutions to poverty, including agriculture and small business grants.

Service Teams – organize medical, education, and engineering volunteer teams to travel to Kopanga to provide on-site treatment, training, education and project development.

Collaborate – work with community health providers, school leaders and local water committees for current and future projects.

NIUU

P.O. Box 221

CDA ID 83816

Extinguishing the Chalice :

We extinguish the Chalice flame because we must, 

But there is no way to extinguish the light it casts. 

Neither do we wish to extinguish that light 

Because it has become a part of us, 

Going with us into our lives every day we shall live, 

Illuminating our path every day of our lives 

And into that which is beyond in every sense. 

So let it be. 

Closing words: 

Closing Words for Easter

By Alex Holt

For all those who celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, may this day be another affirmation of divine love and promise;

For all those who see the eternal story of new spring and life beginning anew, may you breathe deeply of a season of promise and hope.

For all who are experiencing despair or hopelessness this Easter, may you find in the darkness or depression a doorway to light and warmth that offers you freedom.

For all of us: together we can do what no one isolated person can do; rolling the heavy stone aside reminds us we are far more powerful than we ever could be on our own.

Our offering of strong hands to help are prayers made real;

Let us begin again to love.

Closing Circle