​*This blog seeks to speak into a conversations I’ve heard many Christians wrestle with in our post-Christian age.

For most secular Canadians today, Easter is a nice spring holiday to eat chocolate while enjoying time off work. Its imagery of bunnies and chicks speak of spring and new life (themselves pagan symbols). This is a far cry from conjuring up images of the cross and empty tomb, which alone offer true life. Because Easter and Easter don’t mean the same thing anymore, perhaps it is time for a change, to rename Easter? We have further warrant. Easter itself, or Eostre, was a Germanic pagan fertility goddess.* Her worship was popular in Northern Europe to mark the spring equinox. When Christianity came to the now countries of England and Germany, the pagan festival was subsumed into the Christian festival that remembered Jesus’ death and resurrection. However, the name Eostre was retained (a form of evangelistic rebranding).  Wherever German or English has gone in the world the name for the season has remained Easter for some 1000+ years.
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However, the non-Germanic Christian world (i.e. Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Greek, etc) calls the season Pascha or Passover in continuity with the Old Covenant feast when Jesus died and rose. This was the wording of the Church Fathers. While Good Friday, Holy/Passion[1] Week or Lent wasn’t developed in early Christianity until c. 4th century, Passover (Easter) has been celebrated the first Lord’s Day after the lunar Old Covenant Passover since the earliest church period; officially standardized since AD 325.[2] This all makes perfect sense. Jesus was the Passover lamb (1 Cor 5:7), fulfilling the Old Covenant festival of Passover, giving it new meaning for believers and simplifying it under the New Covenant as the Lord’s Supper (Mk 14:22–25; 1 Cor 11:17–34). The weeklong Passover in the Old Testament wasn’t just about remembering God's judgement upon the firstborn passing over those with the blood of a lamb (i.e. Good Friday)  but the Exodus from slavery to new life in the Promised Land. Likewise, the New Covenant Passover remembers the believers' rescue from slavery to sin (Cross) and into new spiritual life (Resurrection).[3]

 To distinguish ourselves from secular and medieval paganism, and unite ourselves to the flow of Scripture, the witness of tradition, we ought to join the rest of the Christian world in calling the season of Easter ‘Passover.’ Passover would then be broken into the two pillar days:

* https://www.etymonline.com/word/Easter​

[1] Passion means suffering.

[2] Prior to the Council of Nicea there were two traditions: the churches in Asian Minor followed the Jewish pattern of the 14th of Nissan (lunar), whereas the churches in Palestine, Egypt and Italy followed the first Lord’s Day after the 14th of Nissan (weekly). (Nick Needham, 2000 Years of  Christ's Power, vol. 1 [2016], 80).  As such it is the day of the week and not day of the month that is commemorated. 

[3] Egypt=sin; Passover lamb= Jesus; Red Sea= baptism; wilderness= our life before glory; the Promised Land= the New Heavens and New Earth.

[4] I call it a season vs. a festival or a holiday (holy day) because there is only one holy day commanded under the New Covenant and that is the Lord’s Day.

[5] We are not commanded to observe Good Friday under the New Covenant as we are the weekly Lord’s Day, however, given the weight allotted to the event in Scripture and its integral part in the establishment of the New Covenant, it is warranted.

[6] It is difficult to escape paganism entirely as even our days of the week are named after Roman gods. Good is in the sense of holy or special, because of what is remembered.  

[7] Tertullian, in the 3rd century, said something like, ‘not to be ashamed of calling it Sunday for it was the Day of the Son.’ ​

From our summer Five Minute Moment (5MM) People’s Choice, someone asked me afterwards about what the Bible says about Cremation. This is a great question and incidentally one of the most frequent questions I receive, especially from those with more life behind them than ahead of them.

Traditionally cremation was only an Eastern practice. It has become more common in formerly Western Christian lands in recent years, particularly in places such as Europe or North American cities which have less ground available for burials or where this ground is expensive. Even here there is a movement back against cremation to natural burials because of environmental concerns.
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The Bible doesn’t explicitly touch on the subject of cremation but it does provide a number of compelling principles that weightily inform a Christian perspective.

From start to finish there is a story of burial and hope of a bodily resurrection in the Bible.

As early as Gen 15:15 there is mention of burial, and though the practice was to be buried in a tomb (Gen 23:6), there is a sense in which a burial is a burial. It was the Egyptians and Babylonians who used coffins and embalming, in preparation for their future life. The greatest example of burial is of course the Lord Jesus, who was buried and on the third day rose (1 Cor 15:4). Because the Bible says Jesus will return from the east Christian graves traditionally always faced that direction, in anticipation.

Likewise, a bodily resurrection is the hope of the believer. The wages of sin is death (Ro 3:23). Though we are spiritually ensured eternal life upon belief, the physical benefit awaits the Resurrection. The Old Testament foresaw the Resurrection in verses like Isa 26:19a and 53:11a. It became a key tenet of the Pharisees (Acts 24:21). In fulfilment of these foreshadowing’s, and Christ’s own Resurrection, is the promise that the believer will share in a resurrection like His (Ro 6:5). This is why Christians have always believed in the Resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting (Apostles Creed).

The Bible values the entire person and so the entire person, including the body, is treated with respect both during life and after death (hence why we don’t desecrate graves).

Not so in Eastern religions (from which we get cremation). Here the body is of little consequence in comparison to the soul. Eastern religions believe the body can impede the soul from moving on to its next journey. As such, the cremation and funeral is undertaken speedily in order to free the soul.
The grand theme of the Bible is one of burial and resurrection. While there are no commands to “be buried” the weight of these principles and the living example of Scripture is why Christians traditionally have always buried their dead. In fact amongst the Eastern Orthodox (and Orthodox Jews) cremation is prohibited.

Yet we know people can die terrible deaths, be eaten, incineration, exploded or suffer death at sea. Certainly the power of the Lord is able to resurrect their bodies, even from dust. He can do the same with cremated bodies. Still the imagery and care of the body is absent in cremation.

I am not going to be cremated. I don’t believe it is prohibited in Scripture but I also don’t believe it is encouraged. Like the Lord Jesus and the saints before Him, it is my wish to follow his example and be buried. There my body will await His return.