From Pesach to Easter
The last two weeks marked two major events, which signify death and rebirth. The Jewish holiday Pesach, which is known as Passover in English, and which started on the 11th of April this year, commemorates events that are estimated to take place around 1450 B.C. years ago, when the Hebrew slaves left Egypt, guided by Moses. It happened after God inflicted ten plagues on the Egyptians. Before the last plague – the death of the firstborns, God instructed the Hebrews to mark the doorposts with the blood of a lamb. When the angel of death was on his way to do his job, he saw the markings and passed over (“pasach” in Hebrew) the Hebrews’ marked dwellings. As a result of the death of the Egyptians’ firstborns, the Hebrew slaves were reborn in the desert as a Jewish nation, but even there, after forty years of travelling, the old generation with a slavery mentality had to die, to be reborn as fighters, whose task was to capture the Promised Land. During the next generations this story was retold again and again every year during the celebration of Pesach for the Jews living in Palestine.
One of those events took place in Jerusalem probably between the years 30 A.D. and 33 A.D. After having the Passover meal (the last supper) with his friends, a Jewish teacher by the name Yehoshua (which means in Hebrew Savior), who was teaching about the end of the world and salvation, was arrested, tried and sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged and finally crucified by the Romans, who attached sign on top of his cross stating “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” The name Jesus Christ is the Greek translation of the Jewish name Yehoshua or Yeshua, and is equivalent, where Christ is Greek for anointed, mashiach or messiah in Hebrew. Many years later his teachings and stories were recorded in the four canonical gospels, referred in the New Testament Epistasis. It was claimed that three days after Jesus’s crucifixion, his body disappeared from the tomb and he had been seen alive. For almost two thousand years the death of the “Jewish King” led to the birth of a new religious tradition for non-Jews, followed by 2, 18 billion Christians in over 200 countries.
On April 16th was Easter Sunday, which commemorated the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and was widely celebrated all over the world. There is a controversy about the name Easter that has its origin with the goddess of the Anglo-Saxons named Eostre. In French, Easter is Paques, in Italian it’s Pasqua, in many other languages the transliteration of the Greek word for Easter, Pascha. I found out about this in the story by R.R. Reno, which appeared in the April 15-16 Review of The Wall Street, titled “The Christian Passover”. Regardless of the name and how you celebrate, both holidays signify “death” of the winter and the “birth” of a new life – spring.
Enjoy and Share.
P.S. In San Francisco one of the places to celebrate Easter is on the top of Mt. Davidson, the highest elevation, with incredible views on the city. I was there at 6 AM on Sunday morning. I wanted to share with you images of the gathering of hundreds of worshippers in front of the huge cross, which belongs to the Armenian Church and to witness death of the night and the birth of the new day (thankfully rain started after the festivities were over). Hope my four images will tell some story.
Do Not Keep Me As A Secret!
Smile And Please SHARE It With A Friend!
Cheers,
