THE GODDESS EASTRE AND JESUS' RESURRECTION DAY An Easter Sermon by Dean Scotty McLennan University Public Worship Stanford Memorial Church March 27, 2005 "I have seen the Lord," announces Mary Magdalene to the disciples in today's gospel lesson from John. i What a magnificent account of Jesus' resurrection day! While it's still dark on the first day of the week -- the Sunday after the Friday when Jesus was executed by the Roman authorities in Jerusalem -- Mary goes to the tomb where the crucified Jesus was laid. She's shocked to see that the stone blocking the entrance has been removed, and she runs to tell two of his male followers. They come back with her, and, sure enough, the stone's been rolled away. Inside they find only linen wrappings and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head. Then they return home. Mary lingers, however, weeping outside the tomb. And then she's utterly surprised by joy. She's rewarded in her lingering by meeting the resurrected Jesus. He calls her name, "Mary!" and she responds "Rabbouni!" Then he asks her to go tell the men, "my brothers" that "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." This is the eyewitness, first person account of Easter. Easter's the greatest day in the Christian calendar. "O Day of Light and Gladness!" ii Jesus' resurrection day moves us from the absolute desolation of death to the incalculable joy of rebirth. "Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia! Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia." iii Jesus' death and rebirth are the central events in Christianity -- the story that spread like wildfire throughout the ancient Roman Empire and launched what became a new religion from its Jewish roots. iv A central question, therefore, I'd like to ask you today -- a question I've been asking since my seminary days without ever receiving an adequate answer -- is this: Why is Jesus' resurrection day in the English-speaking world named after Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring? v What a surprise this is, when you really think about it. A pagan fertility goddess provides the name for the resurrection day of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God. For two thousand years? Hasn't there been time by now, slowly and subtly, to change the name of what's theologically the most important holiday in the Christian year? The New Catholic Encyclopedia, published in 2003, explains that it was Saint Bede the Venerable, a Benedictine monk, who first clarified in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731, that the English term for the Christian holiday derives from the name of the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, the season of rebirth. vi Perhaps the most extensive description we have today of the goddess Eastre comes from the work of the great nineteenth-century German scholar, Jacob Grimm, best known these days for the collection of fairy tales that he compiled with his brother Wilhelm. vii In Jacob Grimm's massive four volume work entitled Teutonic Mythology, viii there are some five pages devoted to this ancient pagan goddess of the Anglo-Saxon people. Grimm 1
explains that "Eastre must in the heathen religion have denoted a higher being, whose worship was so firmly rooted, that the Christian teachers tolerated the name, and applied it to one of their own greatest anniversaries." ix She was "the divinity of the radiant dawn, of upspringing light, a spectacle that brings joy and blessing," and, as Grimm puts it so blithely, "whose meaning could be easily adapted to the resurrection-day of the Christian's God." x He explains that "maidens clothed in white, who at Easter, at the season of returning spring, show themselves in clefts of the rock and on mountains, are [also] suggestive of the ancient goddess." xi Well, who showed herself at Jesus' tomb at dawn on the first Easter morning? Mary Magdalene, the one whom Jesus had cured of evil spirits, according to Luke, xii and the one who throughout much of Christian history has been considered a prostitute. xiii The first witness to the empty tomb and the first witness to the resurrected Jesus is not one of the male disciples, but this particular woman. As evangelical Christian writers have pointed out, in arguing for the historical truth of the resurrection, women's testimony was considered so unreliable in Jesus' time that they were not allowed to serve as legal witnesses in a Jewish court of law. These authors then go on to explain that if the gospel writers -- all four of whom put Mary Magdalene at the tomb on Easter morning xiv -- had been trying to skew the story of the resurrection to make it more believable to first century readers, they certainly wouldn't have had the graveside witness be a woman, rather than a man. xv So we're surprised again: surprised with Mary Magdalene that her rabbi has risen from the dead, surprised that the risen Christ would first appear to a woman, and surprised that this day would be celebrated throughout history in the English-speaking world with the name of an Anglo-Saxon fertility goddess. But why should we be so surprised? The story of Jesus is replete with surprises, including many that run against the grain of religious orthodoxy in his day. He works as a healer on the Sabbath xvi and his table is open to the likes of tax collectors. xvii As one biblical commentary I use puts it, "Jesus can never be confined to the traditional, the safe, and the predictable." xviii -- including the world of patriarchy. He protects an adulterous woman when her sin, by law, was punishable by stoning. xix He speaks with foreign women in public, like a Samaritan woman at a well. xx He allows a woman, a known sinner, to kiss his feet, wipe them with her hair, and anoint them with expensive oil, while his dinner host looks on disapprovingly. xxi And then, when he preaches to the multitudes, he turns all expectations upside down: Blessed are the poor. xxii You cannot serve God and wealth. xxiii Not eye for eye or tooth for tooth; turn the other cheek. xxiv Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. xxv Give alms privately, not in the public light. xxvi Don't worry about your life, what you will eat, or drink, or wear. xxvii Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inside are ravenous wolves. xxviii So this is the teacher, the master, the Christ, whose rebirth and continuing life we celebrate today. Surprised by joy, we are, on so many levels. That phrase, "surprised by joy" was used by the Oxford professor C.S. Lewis as the title of his spiritual autobiography, chronicling his journey from childhood Christianity, to youthful atheism, to adult Christianity. xxix The phrase was used by William Wordsworth as the title of a sonnet wherein he suddenly remembers the intense love he once shared with a nowdeceased woman. xxx I recommend it to you as a phrase with which to go out into your Easter Sunday and on into your week. Be open to being surprised by joy! 2
The great joy, hopefully, is the presence of a newly resurrected Christ in your life -- the Christ who surprises a woman by appearing first to her outside his tomb, the Christ who challenges orthodoxy after orthodoxy of his day in the name of greater humanism, the Christ whose pivotal holiday is named after a pagan fertility goddess. But be surprised, too, by the smaller everyday joys of this spring season. For children it may be those fertility symbols of Easter eggs and Easter bunnies. For Stanford students returning from spring break all around the country, it may be the extraordinary weather which favors us here in the Palo Alto area, compared to almost anywhere else: for months now the green blade has been rising, xxxi the fruit trees have been producing, and winter flowers have been blooming. Spring now will be the most spectacular season of all: As we'll sing before this morning's Eucharist, "Earth feels the season's joyance, from mountain range to sea the tides of life are flowing, fresh manifold and free. In valley and on upland, by forest pathways dim, all nature lifts in chorus the resurrection hymn." xxxii As the reading from Psalms assures us, "God's steadfast love endures forever This is the day that God has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." xxxiii A fellow minister has pointed to daily ways we can be surprised by joy as adults with other people: Just as there's cruelty, brutality, selfishness and abandonment, so there are values and principles that cannot be killed. They will rise again, often in unexpected ways. Justice may be corrupted, delayed and denied, but it will ultimately emerge to be born again in the hearts of people. Beauty may be surfaced over by concrete and massive development, but again and again it finds startling new ways to shine through and drive out the tawdry and the ugly. Courage may be imprisoned in dank cells or the darkest of tombs, but courage keeps unpredictably springing up anew in the hearts of the oppressed. Love may be long buried beneath hatred, but sooner or later the stone will suddenly be rolled away, allowing love to rise again, to walk with us, and to move us profoundly. So, positive values, justice, beauty, and courage -- they live, inspire others, and redeem human life as they are continually seeded in us and rise again in our own lives. Most importantly, the power of love to redeem suffering and misery, to overcome loneliness and fear does not die; indeed, it reaches into the grave and far beyond. xxxiv The Christian message is that God is love and Jesus the Christ came into the world to manifest that love even unto death. Easter is the joyful surprise that even when things look as bleak as they possibly can -- following the Crucifixion of Good Friday -- love has the power to rise again and transform the world. "I have seen the Lord," reports the astonished Mary Magdalene. What will each of us see today, and in the days ahead? I hope we remain open to being surprised by joy, in small everyday ways as well as in larger life-changing ways. As Jacob Grimm reminds us, Eastre lives on as the radiant dawn, the upspringing light, and a spectacle that brings joy and blessing. Her name still graces Jesus' Resurrection Day. May our minds and hearts be open to the new in the old, to life emergent from death, to the Alleluia of holding our joys and triumphs high, now and always. AMEN. 3
NOTES i John 20:1-18 ii Frederick Lucian Hosmer, "O Day of Light and Gladness," (hymn set to music of Henry Smart), in Singing the Living Tradition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), #270 iii Charles Wesley, "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" (hymn set to Lyra Davidica of 1708), in Singing the Living Tradition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), #268 iv Huston Smith, The World's Religions (HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), p. 330. v HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion (HarperSanFrancisco), 1995, p. 328. vi New Catholic Encyclopedia (Detroit: Gale, 2003), vol. 5, p. 10; See also the Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend (New York: Facts on File, 1988); For Bede's work, see The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), p. 76 and the HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion, p. 107; for more on the goddess Eastre, see Thomas Horn, "Easter is Coming! (Or is it Eastre?)," in Raiders News Update, www.raidersnewsupdate.com/easternehtml vii Columbia Encyclopedia, p. 352. viii Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, translated by James Steven Stallybrass (New York: Dover Publications, 1966). ix Ibid., p. 290. x Ibid., p. 291. xi Ibid. xii Luke 8:2. xiii Peter Calvocoressi, Who's Who in the Bible (London: Penguin Books, 1999), pp. 121-122. xiv Note that Mary is reported as coming to the tomb before dawn in all four gospels, but accompanied by other women in all but John. xv See Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), pp. 217-218; also, Paul Copan and Ronald K. Tacelli (eds.), Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2000), pp. 33, 176-178. xvi See Scotty McLennan, "Breaking the Sabbath to Honor It," a sermon delivered in the Stanford Memorial Church on March 6, 2005. xvii New Interpreter's Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), Vol. IX, p. 472. xviii Ibid. xix John 7:53-8:11. xx John 4: 1-42. xxi Luke 7: 36-5 xxii Matthew 5: 3. xxiii Matthew 6: 24. xxiv Matthew 5: 38-39. xxv Luke 6:27. xxvi Matthew 6 2-4. 4
xxvii Matthew 6: 25. xxviii Matthew 7:15. xxix C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1955). xxx William Wordsworth, "Surprised by Joy -- Impatient as the Wind," www.online-literature.com/wordsworth/534/ xxxi John M.C. Crum, "Now the Green Blade Rises," Oxford Book of Carols (1928). xxxii Hosmer, "O Day of Light and Gladness." xxxiii Psalm 118: 1, 24. xxxiv Adapted from W. Edward Harris, "Some Things Will Never Die," in Carl Seaburg and Mark Harris, Celebrating Easter and Spring (Cambridge: Anne Miniver Press, 2000), pp. 72-73. 5