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Hymns: Opening, Lo the Earth Awakes Again, #61. Closing, O Day of
Light and Gladness, #270.
Reading: In the Tomb of the Soul, #628
 ’m
afraid to die, aren’t you? Leaving all those I love forever. Leaving all
that is of meaning to me in my daily life, leaving the Earth, this blue
world of awesome beauty. Leaving this universe of unfathomable mystery.
Or do we? Do we have to leave? Is that the way it is? When we seem to
end, do we end? Or is it as Elizabeth Kubler Ross says,
“Death is simply a shedding of the physical body, like the butterfly
coming out of a cocoon. It is a transition onto a higher state of
consciousness, where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh,
to be able to grow, and the only thing you lose is something you don’t
need anymore…your physical body. It’s like putting away your winter coat
when spring comes.”
Or to say it in Christian terms, “O death where is they sting, O grave,
where is thy victory?”
The resurrection of Jesus, identified as the Christ by the believers, if
true, is the single greatest event in the world’s history. Last Easter I
posed the question to this room full of skeptics and non-believers….what
if it IS true. It would mean for certain that there is an alternative to
death. That there is life after death in abundance. The hardest reality
facing us all would be made easy, made joyful. All we have to do is have
faith, accept that it is true, and the fear of death is no more. The
acceptance of that perceived reality leads to joyful lives for many of
our Christian brothers and sisters. I envy them that peace. I am one, as
I know many of you are, who has to struggle with my lack of faith. I
have more of a here and now orientation that says “sure, there is some
form of continuation of our souls, some re-cycling in which the universe
makes use of our life experience, our gathered wisdom, but what that
form is, I do not know.” It is a step up from, “when we die we become
dust and are simply no more.” But it does not give the certainty, the
joy, of the risen Christ.
What we, as Unitarian-Universalists focus on at Easter instead is not so
profound in a human sense. We focus on the re-birth of the Earth. The
return, yet once again, of the fecundity of the Earth in Spring time, so
that we may live. Which is as profound as it gets, yet is less dramatic,
more assumed, more expected than the resurrection. Ancient peoples did
not, necessarily, assume the soil would green and grow again. There were
many prayers offered to gods and goddesses of fertility at the vernal
equinox, including to the Anglo-Saxon goddess, Oestre. It is from her
name that we take the name of the holiday.
The early Christian Church deftly absorbed popular pagan rituals into
the practices of the church. After discovering that people were more
reluctant to give up their holidays and festivals than their gods, they
simply incorporated Pagan practices into Christian festivals. As
recounted by the Venerable Bede, an early Christian writer, clever
clerics copied Pagan practices and by doing so, made Christianity more
palatable to pagan folk reluctant to give up their festivals for somber,
boring Christian practices.
In 2nd Century Europe the predominant celebration was a raucous Saxon
fertility celebration in honor of the same Saxon Goddess Eastre, whose
sacred animal was a hare. The hare is often associated with moon
goddesses; the egg and the hare together represent the god and the
goddess, respectively.
Pagan fertility festivals at the time of the Spring equinox were common-
it was believed that at this time, male and female energies were
balanced.
The colored eggs are of another, even more ancient origin. The eggs
associated with this and other Vernal festivals have been symbols of
rebirth and fertility for so long the precise roots of the tradition are
unknown, and may date to the beginning of human civilization. Ancient
Romans and Greeks used eggs as symbols of fertility, rebirth, and
abundance- eggs were solar symbols, and figured in the festivals of
numerous resurrected gods.
In Germany, beginning in the 1500’s, children would await the arrival of
Oschter Haws, a rabbit who would lay colored eggs in nests to the
delight of children. It was this German tradition that popularized the
'Easter bunny' in America, when introduced into the American cultural
fabric by German settlers in Pennsylvania.
Many modern practitioners of Neo-pagan and earth-based religions have
embraced these symbols as part of their religious practice, identifying
with the life-affirming aspects of the spring holiday. Ironically, some
Christian groups have used the presence of these symbols to denounce the
celebration of the Easter holiday, and many conservative churches have
recently abandoned the Pagan title with more Christian oriented titles
like 'Resurrection Sunday.'
One area in which I have great empathy for Christians is in their
concern for the trivialization of Easter, as well as with Christmas. For
Christians, Easter is an opportunity to search deeply within, to review
one’s life. The sacrifices and fasting of Lent, followed by the darkness
of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, when Jesus is crucified, ending with
the great joy and celebration of his resurrection is an annual
opportunity to experience spiritual depth and healing. It is an
opportunity to clean house, to face whatever needs to die within so the
greater soul can be resurrected to thrive in a new annual cycle of life.
All of us need such regular soul cleansing, but we don’t always have the
great themes and structures to pull us into these practices.
Rather, we follow the easier, fun path. Easter egg hunts, chocolate
bunny massacres, perhaps some wanton sexual flings to honor the pagan
fertility rituals, dressing up in our finest to walk in the Easter
parade, pretending with the children that the Easter Hare, the goddess
Eastre’s original sidekick, truly exists, and along with Santa Claus
(another German invention) brings gifts to all good little girls and
boys. It’s all in fun, we say. But know that the confectioners and
greeting card industries, along with many others, have a vested interest
in your participation in these myths. There has been concern about this
for a long time. The loss of the original juice of our myths through
commercialization, thus trivializing them. This excerpt from a 1905
German magazine begins with a lamentation about the increasing influence
of private enterprise on the depth and richness of our myths and
continues:
“Entering
another spring and another Easter we might reflect on this loss,
since our myths developed out of a real need to pass along
information and instruction regarding the essential inner realities
of human life.”
In that spirit, there is another myth I would like to explore today. One
that might teach us something of the “essential inner realities of
life.” The Greek myth of Persephone and Demeter.
The Legend of Demeter
In the story, Demeter, the goddess of grain, was very closely linked to
her daughter Persephone , from her union with Zeus. Persephone grew up
among the Nymphs, in company with Athena and Artemis, Zeus' other
daughters. Persephone was beautiful, innocent, and pure. The trouble
began when her uncle Hades, the master of the Underworld, fell in love
with her. With Zeus' approval, he decided to abduct her. One day, when
she was picking narcissus flowers, the ground opened and Hades appeared.
He seized her and dragged her down into the Underworld. Demeter heard
Persephone's scream and rushed to help her, but when she came it was too
late. Persephone had disappeared. For nine days and nine nights, without
any food or drink, Demeter wandered over the world with torches in her
hands, trying to find her daughter, but in vain. Nobody could tell the
desperate mother where Persephone was. On the tenth day, Demeter went to
all-seeing Helios, the god of the Sun, who touched with her suffering,
revealed the truth. Then, Demeter decided to abandon her divine role and
she left Olympus disguised as an old woman. For a long time she wandered
among the cities of men, aimlessly.
After some time had passed, still in despair because of the loss of her
daughter, Demeter re-assumed her goddess role and went back to her
temple. She became very angry at what had happened to her daughter. She
therefore forbade the seeds to sprout and trees to bear fruit and soon
infertility endangered all humankind. Zeus first sent his messenger
Iris, and then all other gods, to persuade the goddess to stop punishing
the whole human race, but it was unsuccessful. She angrily said that the
earth would never bear any fruit, unless she saw her daughter again.
Zeus then sent Hermes to the Underworld to bring Persephone back to her
mother. Hades agreed to give up his wife, but before she left the
Underworld he tempted her to eat a few pomegranate seeds, and thus bound
her forever to his dark empire. Hermes took Persephone out of the
Underworld, but when she told her mother that she had tried pomegranate,
Demeter realized that Persephone would spend only two thirds of the year
with her. Before she returned with her daughter to Olympus, Demeter
ordered the earth to regenerate itself, then she taught the kings of the
earth her divine secrets and initiated them into her sacred mysteries.
This legend explained why each year when the winter came, the earth
looked poor, with no flowers in the fields and no leaves on the trees.
That was the time when Persephone had to join her husband Hades, and
Demeter was in mourning. In the spring, everything started to blossom
again, celebrating the return of Persephone.
What are the essential inner realities that this myth teaches us? It
certainly gives an explanation of how/why the spring comes and winter
returns. It introduces us to the symbolism of the pomegranate, which
Hades tricks Persephone into eating before her return to Demeter. In the
ancient Greek culture, the pomegranate symbolized regeneration and the
indissolubility of marriage, Persephone could not leave Hades
permanently once she had eaten it.
The deeper inner reality to me is a little harder to find. It lies in
the anger, the rage of Demeter. Once she has passed through despair, she
arrives at rage, and finds the solution. She acts to end the green
growing cycle of re-generation and re-birth of the earth, she kills the
earth, which was within her power, in order to restore balance to the
universe. She confronts the situation as a powerful female. When her
daughter returns, though it is an imperfect solution, all is made right
again. Our annual resurrection was assured. The message is not unlike
that of Christianity.
Jesus was executed. Yet in losing his life, according to the story, he
gave an invaluable gift to humankind….eternal life of the soul. Demeter
granted the gift of the continuing cycle of re-birth of the earth. Both
helped bring balance back to life.
So, should we feel guilty about having fun today? Of being so
superficial as to devour chocolate bunnies rather than reflecting on the
great themes of a Christian Easter or enjoying the beauty of a
re-generating Earth. Well, of course not. Celebrating life is enough in
itself, is it not? There is great meaning and inner reality embedded in
the enjoyment of life. Today, may we heartily eat, drink, and love
bunnies. And maybe, say a prayer of healing for our world. And let us
remember.
The Earth dies every year, and is re-birthed. Powerful female deities
like Eastre and Demeter have seen to that. We mortals die, and our souls
are re-birthed. That is the message of the Christian Easter.
Our friend Inna died 4 weeks ago today. Today, her daughter is in the
hospital all set to give birth to Inna’s grandbaby. The resurrection and
the light give forth in many forms. May we open our eyes and see.
Happy Easter.
Amen.
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