From the Pastor's Study
From the Pastor’s Study
A Continuation of Life
April 13, 2022
The sign in front of a local business says “Easter: a time of rebirth.” I could not disagree more. Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, is not a time of rebirth. It is a time when we celebrate the continuation of life, not the beginning of life.
In Christianity we do celebrate new birth, of course, but it is not at Easter. New birth takes place when someone comes to know that Jesus died for their sins and puts their faith in him. Paul would say that when that happens, we die to our old selves, and we are born anew into Jesus Christ. New birth takes place at our conversion, as Jesus explained to Nicodemus in John 3. The words translated as “born again” in that chapter can also be translated as “born from above,” indicating that we are born into new life through the working of the Holy Spirit. When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, that is our rebirth. We become new people, new creations, because we are born again.
The idea of Easter being a time of rebirth comes from paganism. The word, “pagan,” first was used in a religious sense in the 15th century to describe people who worshipped the old gods that people had developed before Christianity was brought to their area. The worship of the gods of nature which reside in everything (panentheism = gods everywhere in everything) was named to be pagan after people were introduced to the saving work of Jesus Christ. Paganism (and its counterpart, heathenism) remains strong in some parts of the world, particularly in places where people believe that the gods reside in the trees, water, sun, and animals.
In paganism there is the belief that the gods “die” in the autumn, remain dead throughout the winter and come again to life in the spring. It is easy to understand why people who didn’t know that God is the Creator and is outside of creation would believe this. It does appear that the world dies in the fall and comes to life in the spring, and thus, if one does not know better, it is easy to believe that the gods must as well. Pagan rituals involving fertility and life were celebrated in the springtime and involved such symbols as eggs and rabbits, both which are well-known symbols of new life. (No domestic animal multiplies as rapidly as the rabbit.)
The idea that Easter is a time of rebirth, then, is a reflection of paganism and its belief that in the spring everything is reborn. Many of the symbols of Easter that are not found in the Bible are derived from paganism.
But Easter is not about new birth. Easter, at which time Christians celebrate the resurrection, is about the continuation of life. Resurrection is not reincarnation. Reincarnation, the Buddhist and Hindu belief adopted by the West, is about new birth as that teaching says that a soul, after it leaves the body at death, comes back to reinhabit a new creature. Reincarnation is about new birth, but resurrection is not.
Resurrection is about the continuation of life. When Jesus died on the cross, his physical body remained in the tomb. When he rose again, he took up his physical body again and continued on with his life. But we must be clear that it was the same Jesus who rose from the grave who had also died a few days earlier.
Because Jesus was raised from the dead, Paul says, we also anticipate our resurrections. At some point, when Jesus returns, our souls, which will have been residing in heaven before the throne of God, will be reunited with our physical bodies, and we will continue on with life. We will be the same people then as we are now. True, there will be some significant changes, but our essence will remain the same. Resurrection is about the continuation of our lives, not about new birth.
I strongly disagree with that sign that the local business posted this week. Easter is not a time of rebirth; rather, it is a time when we celebrate the continuation of life. Because of Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection, our lives will continue forever. We begin in that new life, not at Easter but at the moment when we become God’s children through faith in Jesus.
Sadly, many of our neighbours have forgotten about God and do not understand the story of Jesus’ resurrection and do not understand what it means. Someone once said that when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything. I detect that the western world is moving rather quickly back to its pagan origins, looking to have a new beginning in the spring when the world seems to come to life. As Christians, we continue to say that new birth comes through faith in Jesus Christ and the resurrection gives us the sure hope that our lives will continue forever. I would be much happier if the sign on the business said, “Resurrection: continuing life better forever” because that would be true.
Pastor Gary
