By Khen Lim
Image Source: derryckgreen.net
Even as we bask in the celebration of Chinese New Year, it
might have dawned on very few that Chinese New Year’s Eve was Ash Wednesday,
the start of Lent, leading eventually to Easter Sunday. We are, in other words,
46 days away from commemorating the resurrection of Christ.
But what is Ash Wednesday and why the odd name? Is it a
significant day in the holy calendar? Should Protestants take particular note
of this day? What do we do to prepare for such an occasion? Now that it’s over,
does it even matter?
Different Dates
The first thing to understand about Ash Wednesday is that different
church orders observe it on different days. The Roman Catholics observe it as
the first day of Lent and pretty much the whole Protestant group of orders do
too.
On the other hand, the Eastern Catholic Churches (such as the
Egyptian Copts) assert that Clean Monday is the first day of Lent, which is
instead the Monday after Ash
Wednesday. Hence for 2015, Clean Monday falls on February 23.
There is also the small matter of when Easter falls. The intrigue
gets thicker when we realise that the Bible does not even mention the word
‘Easter.’ But we do know that Easter, as an event, always begins with the
Jewish Passover because at that time of celebration, Jesus was crucified before
rising from the dead. So the Passover is important as our Biblical key feature,
even if Easter bears no mention.
Therefore there was a tendency for early Christians to remember
Christ’s resurrection as being close to the date of the Jewish Passover. By the
middle of the second century, this became well established but then came the
different calendar systems that added to the confusion. In time, the dates of
the Passover and Easter simply drifted farther apart.
Based on modern calculations, Ash Wednesday cannot fall on any
date earlier than February 4 and then, no later than March 10. It also appears
that Ash Wednesday has never fallen on the leap date of February 29 at least so
far; but it is also said that this can mathematically happen in 2096.
Origins of Easter
Image Source: irene-turner.com
But how did the name ‘Easter’ come about if it isn’t found in
the Bible? Is it even acceptable?
Some believe that the word ‘Easter’ has pagan connotations,
having possibly derived from a spring festival Saxon-based goddess called
Eostre in northern Europe and because the Christian celebrations took place
around the same time, the name stuck on and evolved to become Easter in the
English medium. It seems the Teutons can also lay similar claim because their
goddess of fertility had a name that drew just as close to Easter such as
Eastra. Then again, there were numerous other spring-time pagan festivals in
ancient cultures around the Mediterranean that centred on the worship of
goddesses including Aphrodite (Cyprus), Ashtoreth (Israel), Astarte (Greece),
Demeter (Mycenae), Ishtar (Assyria), Kali (India) and Ostara (Nordic).
The name ‘Easter’ also has historical connections with Pesach,
which is Hebrew for Passover. In Greek, we recognise that as Pascha or Pâques
(French), Pascua (Spanish) and Pasqua (Italian). The name Pasquale could
possibly come from such roots as well. Pagan overtones continue till this day
with the popularity of brightly coloured or painted Easter eggs and the
popularity of chocolate. There is also the ‘Easter Bunny’ that is as irritating
as Santa Claus for Christmas for these pagan figurines threaten to dilute the
real message.
The
UK’s Guardian newspaper on April
3 2010, encourages its readers to view Easter as no more than a pagan
festival. Its writer, Heather McDougall, writes:
“The general symbolic story of the
death of the son (sun) on a cross (the constellation of the Southern Cross) and
his rebirth, overcoming the powers of darkness, was a well-worn story in the
ancient world.”
She
goes on to provide plenty of “parallel, rival resurrected saviours” as she puts
it. She calls ‘sunrise services,’ an “obvious pagan solar celebration.” She
draws parallels between the lunar phasal dating of Easter with paganism,
rhetorically asking, “how pagan is that?” She links the Easter hot cross buns
with pagan history and the ending to her article strikes one as defiantly
atheistic: “What better way to celebrate than to bite the head off the bunny
goddess, go to a ‘sunrise service,’ get yourself a sticky-footed fluffy chick
and stick it on your TV, whilst helping yourself to a hefty slice of pagan
simnel cake?”
Going
back to the issue of the original dates for Easter, there seems to be much
disagreement. According to the Bible, the chronology of events follows Jesus entering
Jerusalem possibly around 29-30AD and then partaking in the Last Supper with
His disciples on a Thursday followed by His arraignment, interrogation,
torturing and crucifixion on the following Friday before his ultimate resurrection
the day after, on the Sunday. The following week, He appeared to His disciples
before He ascended to Heaven 40 days after He had risen.
The
verses in the four Gospels relating to these events are as follows:
|
|
Event
|
Matthew
|
Mark
|
Luke
|
John
|
|
Triumphant arrival in Jerusalem
|
Palm Sunday
|
21:1-11
|
11:1-10
|
19:29-44
|
12:12-19
|
|
Last Supper with His disciples
|
Maundy Thursday
|
26:17-29
|
14:12-25
|
22:7-20
|
13:1-38
|
|
Arraigned, interrogated, tortured and crucified
(eve of Passover)
|
Good Friday
|
26:47-75
27:1-66
|
14:43-72
15:1-47
|
22:47-71
23:1-56
|
18:2-40
19:1-42
|
|
Resurrection of Christ
|
Easter Sunday
|
28:1-8
|
16:1-8
|
24:1-12
|
20:1-10
|
|
Appearance before His disciples
|
Start of Pentecost
|
28:9-10
|
16:14
|
24:36-43
|
20:19-29
|
|
Ascension to heaven (40th day post-Easter)
|
Ascension Day
|
28:16-20
|
16:19-20
|
24:44-53
|
|
Dating the Easter Sunday
We are told that it was a full moon on the Sunday when Jesus
was resurrected following the March or vernal equinox. This was established as
early as 325AD when the Council of Nicaea agreed thereafter that Easter was to be
held on the first Sunday after the very first full moon occurring on or after
the Spring Equinox, which would then be dependent on the ecclesiastical
approximation of March 21.
Image Source: scholastic.com
For those who are vague on stuff like equinoxes and solstices,
a simple lesson will make it easy to understand:
As the earth circles around the sun, it creates an orbit that
is not exactly a perfect circle but an ellipse. This means that in ascribing a
full orbit, there will be two instances when the earth will be at its closest
point to the sun’s surface. Similarly as well, there will also be two instances
when the earth will be at its farthest point. This is when the sun is at its
highest or lowest point in the sky at noon depending on which hemisphere you
are in.
The former phenomenon is called an equinox while the latter is
called a solstice. The two equinoxes occur in spring and autumn while the two
solstices take place in summer and winter. Of these, the spring equinox that
happens around March is the focal point for dating the Easter Sunday event.
This is where dating and timing get a little complex. Because
of the way things work with the earth’s orbit around the sun, these events
including Easter Sunday cannot fall on fixed dates regardless of whether we use
the Julian or the Gregorian calendar (Incidentally some Orthodox Churches rely
on the disused Julian calendar, meaning that their dates will always differ
from ours).
The upshot of these interpretations is that Christians ended
up celebrating Easter on different dates at various times in history. By the
end of the Second Century, Easter was celebrated on the day of the Passover in
as much as it was also celebrated on the following Sunday.
The problem with calendars
Easter dating and timing is not possible without taking into
account the calendar in use. While the world has moved to adopt the Gregorian
calendar, there are still remaining churches that maintain Easter observances
based on its Julian predecessor.
|
|
Roman Calendar
|
Julian Calendar
|
Gregorian Calendar
|
|
Introducer
|
Romulus, later King Numa
Pompilius
|
Julius Caesar
|
Pope Gregory XIII
|
|
Other names
|
Pre-Julian Calendar, Lunar
Calendar
|
|
Western Calendar,
Christian Calendar
|
|
Year of
introduction
|
c.753BC then modified
c.700BC
|
45BC
|
1582AD
|
|
Year
duration
|
Originally 304 days; later
355 days in 10 months
|
365.25 days
|
365 days excl leap years
|
|
Condition
for leap year compliance
|
None; instead there were six
30-day months and four 31-day months
|
Year must be divisible by
4
|
Year must be divisible by
4; if evenly divisible by 100 and by
400 at the same time
|
|
Accuracy
|
Failure to align with
seasons despite compensating for the earlier 61 missing days
|
Error of 1 day every 128
years
|
Error of 1 day every 3,236
years
|
Note: The earliest countries to
switch to the Gregorian calendar were Italy, Portugal, Spain and Poland in 1582
while Turkey was the last to do so in 1927. For more detailed information about
the above calendars, click the following accordingly: Roman, Julian, Gregorian.
The transitioning to the current Gregorian calendar was due to
the longer Julian dating system struggling to properly align with the orbital
variations of the earth around the sun but principally in terms of the Easter
dating, it was an issue with the equinox.
As it stood with the Julian calendar, the date of the Spring
Equinox was more inclined to move towards the earlier parts of March, which
mean it would veer further away from the actual Easter itself. Embracing the Gregorian
calendar helped to realign the Equinox issue and the results proved to be so.
Following the transition, Easter has been falling on a Sunday between March 22
and April 25 since 1753AD and will continue to do so at least until
2400AD.
Despite this change, it appears that not all is well still.
On March 10 1997, the World
Council of Churches together with the Middle-East Council of Churches convened
in Aleppo, Syria and suggested a change to the way in which Easter dates are
arrived at. Rather than using the equation-based method, a reform was proposed
where Easter is calculated by directly observing astronomically and by doing
so, we will once and for all resolve whatever date differences among the
churches throughout the year regardless of the calendar used.
According to the actual original proposal, the recommendation
was as follows:
“In the estimation of this consultation, the most likely way
to succeed in achieving a common date for Easter in our own day would be
(a)
To maintain the Nicene norms (that Easter should fall on the
Sunday following the first vernal full moon), and
(b)
To calculate the
astronomical data (the vernal equinox and the full moon) by the most accurate
possible scientific means,
(c)
Using as the basis for
reckoning the meridian of Jerusalem, the place of Christ’s death and resurrection.”
The Council had also put forth that the necessary calculations
were “conveniently presented in Synodica V (Chambésy – Genève, Les Editions du Centre
Orthodoxe, 1981), pages 133-149. It goes further, saying specifically the following:
“Astronomical observations, of
course, depend upon the position on earth, which is taken as the point of
reference. This consultation believes that it is appropriate to employ the
meridian of Jerusalem, the site of Christ’s passion and resurrection, as this
necessary point of reference for the calculation of the March equinox and the
subsequent full moon.”
As it turned out, the proposal was to begin in 2001. Fourteen
years later, nothing has been done about it.
For the full text of the proposal, click
here.
In fact as far back as in 1963, the Second Vatican Council had
met and agreed to turn Easter from a moving to a fixed holiday on the proviso
that there was consensus among the Christian churches. As Borgna Brunner
reported in Infoplease,
the proposal was to affix the second Sunday of April as the yearly Easter
Sunday event.
And we know the outcome of this one.
Lining up Ash Wednesday
Once we are able to pinpoint the date for Easter Sunday, it’s
just a matter of working backwards by 40 days to arrive at Ash Wednesday. This
run-up to Easter Sunday constitutes Lent and is considered sacred to liturgical
churches where fasting and prayerfulness are observed.
However Western tradition suggests 46 rather than 40 days
because the counting must take into account the six Sundays in which
worshipping takes precedent over fasting but Orthodox churches do not agree.
Instead they include Sundays as fasting days.
Image Source: pixshark.com
We are told that the primacy of the 40-day count is
established to reflect on Jesus spending forty days fasting and praying in the
wilderness and overcoming intense temptation from the Devil following His
baptism by John the Baptist.
This is recorded by the synoptic Gospels, of which, we quote
Mark here:
“Immediately the Spirit impelled Him to go into the
wilderness. And He was in the wilderness for forty days being tempted by the
Satan; and He was with the wild beasts and the angels were ministering to Him.” (Mark 1:12-13 NASB)
Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13 offer a more detailed outline
as to what the Devil’s temptations were and how Jesus denied him the victory.
This period of forty days that Jesus had spent in the
wilderness is also echoed through the Bible in other examples. Moses, for
example, endured forty days of repentance and fasting in response to how his
people had affronted God by creating the abominable Golden Calf (Exodus 32:4).
Noah and his family had also spent forty days in the Ark riding out the floods (Genesis
7:6-17) that were God’s retribution against His people (6:7).
In fact there now exists a Jewish tradition that uses the
forty-day trial period as the basis for contrition, reflection and repentance
in much the same way as Christians practice during Lent. The Jews commit to
this for the High Holy Days spanning from Rosh Chodesh Elul to Yom Kippur.
Elul is the name of the month in which Moses spent on Mount
Sinai to ready the second (replacement) set of tablets after he broke the first
one following the scene of the Golden Calf (Exodus 32, 34:27-28). It was on
this day – Rosh Chodesh Elul – that he ascended and then he came down on the
tenth day of Tishri at the end of Yom Kippur. That is when the repentance was complete.
Today, devout Christians fast for the six days per week for up
to six weeks, from Mondays to Saturdays inclusive but must exclude the Sundays
of the same six weeks before adding on the final four days from Wednesday to
Saturday in the week leading to Easter Sunday. All told, the number of days works
out to be 36 plus 6 plus 4, arriving hence at 46 days.
The reason behind the name
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As we’ve said, many of the names we use here do not appear in
the Bible. Other than Easter, the name Ash Wednesday is also non-existent. In
early Christendom, the papacy referred to the event in Latin as ‘dies cinerum,’
which translates into ‘day of ashes.’ Evidence of this goes as far back as the
eighth century when copies of the Gregorian Sacramentary revealed how the
faithful lined up and walked to the altar for the priest to then mark each
forehead with the sign of the cross using ashes.
Outside of the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England in
the mid-sixteenth century had renounced the ‘ceremony of the ashes’ (as it was
referred to then). After the death of King Henry VIII in 1547, Archbishop Thomas
Cranmer removed the practice from the liturgies outlined in the inaugural Book
of Common Prayer and then had it replaced by what was later called the ‘Commination
Office.’ In the act, he also forbade several other things including the
carrying of candles on Candlemas-day, palms on Palm Sunday and of course, the
use of ashes for Ash Wednesday, calling all of these, “superstitious
ceremonies.”
Interestingly then, in the 1549 version of the Book of Common
Prayer, there included a rite that was entitled, “The First Day of Lent:
Commonly Called Ash Wednesday.” Even
as church liturgies no longer included the said ceremony, the Church of England
had not actually strictly forbidden it.
Even John Foxe had said then, that the name ‘Ash Wednesday’
had alluded to something that only the pope would use in his ceremonial church,
explaining that it was “so called because in the Romish church, the priest
blesses ashes on this day and puts them upon the heads of the people.”
Accusations of superstition have since stuck in some quarters
till today with some declaring Ash Wednesday as nothing but a pagan event grafted
into church beliefs by no less the Roman Catholic Church only a few centuries
after Christ. Critics explained that Constantine had wanted to bring the pagans
and the Christians together under the Roman Empire when in fact he was a
sun-worshipper. One
critical writer says this about Constantine:
“The real secret of Constantine and the bishops of Rome is
their cunning introduction of sun worship and paganism into Christianity. It was
done so shrewdly that, incredibly, it has been veiled within the faith for
centuries. Through Constantine, paganism and Christianity joined hands in the
Roman Empire. History readily records that Constantine was a sun-worshipper. In
one decree, he declared, “On the venerable Day of the Sun, let the magistrates
and people residing in cities rest and let all workshops be closed” (March 7
321AD). He made this decree in honour of the sun after his supposed conversion
to Christianity! Constantine, even after his ‘conversion,’ remained a pagan.”
It is not easy to find any mention of Constantine bringing the
pagans and Christians together and using Ash Wednesday and other similar ‘holy
events’ as a point of popular convergence but it is widely implied in this
case. The conspiratorial role played by the Roman Catholic Church thereafter is
similarly well documented but we leave this point to the reader to delve into.
Image Source: jelenard.blog.com
Biblical mention of ashes provides the evidence of their use
in moments of grief and/or deep remorse and this in itself could have fuelled
its use in the lead-up to Easter. Here are some of the better known examples in
Scripture concerning the use of ashes:
2 Samuel 13:19 (NASB)
“Tamar put ashes on her head and tore her long-sleeved
garment which was on her; and she put her hand on her head and went away,
crying aloud as she went.”
This took place after her half-brother
Amnon had raped her (13:2, 11-14).
Job 42:3-6 (NASB)
“‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore
I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me,
which I did not know. ‘Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You and You
instruct me.’ I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eyes
see You; therefore I retract and I repent in dust and ashes.”
Job was answering God in a tête-a-tête that began several chapters earlier (c.38).
Jeremiah 6:26 (NASB)
“O daughter of My people, put on sackcloth and roll in ashes; mourn as for an only
son, a lamentation most bitter. For suddenly the destroyer will come upon us.”
God was declaring His
rejection for His people and the coming destruction of Jerusalem by announcing
the arrival of their enemy from the north (6:22).
Daniel 9:3 (NASB)
“So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer
and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and
ashes.”
This was part of Daniel’s
prayer to God on behalf of His people (9:3).
Image Source: jennifermeehan.wordpress.com
Numbers 19:9, 19:17 (NASB)
“Now a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a
clean place and the congregation of the sons of Israel shall keep it as water
to remove impurity; it is purification
from sin.”
“Then for the unclean person they shall take some of the ashes of the burnt purification from
sin and flowing water shall be added to them in a vessel.”
These are parts of the
statute of the law as commanded by God to Moses and Aaron (19:1-2).
Jonah 3:6 (NASB)
“When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his
throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes.”
This was after Jonah was
instructed by God to proclaim to the city of Nineveh of His intention to
overthrow the city (3:4).
Esther 4:1 (NASB)
“When Mordecai learned all that had been done, he tore his
clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes
and went out into the midst of the city and wailed loudly and bitterly.”
This took place after
Mordecai had discovered Haman’s intention to annihilate his fellow Jews using
King Ahasuerus’ approval (3:8-11).
Matthew 11:21 (NASB)
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the
miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have
repented long ago in sackcloth and
ashes.”
Jesus was condemning the
unrepentance of those cities despite the miracles that He performed (11:20).
This verse is also found in Luke 10:13.
As for whether the ashes were poured on the head or used to
mark the forehead, the practice varied although in recent decades, the latter
had become the preferred way. There was also the sprinkling of ashes, which was
the earliest method we know of. This was done for someone who was about to die,
bringing to mind then an important message spoken to man by God in Genesis 3:19
(NASB):
“By the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return
to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust and to dust you shall return.”
This verse soon became the cornerstone of Ash Wednesday at
least until 1969 when an alternative formula was offered in the Roman Rite that
revolved around Mark 1:15 (NASB):
“…and saying, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is
at hand; repent and believe in the
Gospel.”
While Genesis 3:19 are God’s words spoken to a sinful Adam and
Eve that today, serves as a stark reminder of our sinfulness and mortality,
Mark 1:15, on the other hand, simply adds further emphasis, making our sin even
more explicit and pronounced. In other words what was implicit in the old are
now amplified and emboldened. This can’t be wrong if we understand it this way.
The earliest documented evidence of marking foreheads using
ashes may be in 1000AD when an Anglo-Saxon abbot by the name of Ælfric of
Eynsham wrote the following:
“We read in the books both in the Old Law and in the New, that
the men who repented of their sins bestrewed themselves with ashes and clothed
their bodies with sackcloth. Now let us do this little at the beginning of our
Lent, that we strew ashes upon our heads to signify that we ought to repent of
our sins during the Lenten fast.”
Tertullian (c.160-225AD) himself had also said much the same,
suggesting that the confession of sin should feature the act of lying in
sackcloth and amidst ashes. The historian Eusebius (c.260-340AD) had recalled
something similar, saying that an apostate in repentance had adorned upon
himself with ashes whilst pleading to Pope Zephyrinus for readmission to
communion.
It seems that by the end of the tenth century, the use of
ashes on the first day of Lent had become customary in Europe. However it was
not so in Rome that is, until Pope Urban II decided to extend the tradition to
the church there. It was only then that this practice had a liturgical name in
Latin, ‘Feria Quarta Cinerum’ or ‘Ash Wednesday.’
Image Source: ldstalk.com
The ashes itself come from the burning of the palm branches
that were blessed in the previous year’s Palm Sunday event. These palm branches
are representative of what the disciple records in John 12:12-13 (NASB),
saying:
“On the next day, the large crowd who had come to the feast,
when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took the branches of the palm trees and went out
to meet Him and began to shout, ‘Hosanna! BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME
OF THE LORD, even the King of Israel.”
While John was the only one of the canonical Gospels to say
that these were leaves from palm trees, it was only Mark and Matthew who then described
how they were used:
“And many spread their coats in the road, and others spread
leafy branches which they had cut from the fields.” (Mark 11:8, NASB)
“Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and others
were cutting branches from the trees and spreading
them in the road.” (Matthew 21:8, NASB)
These palm branches themselves have a significant meaning in
the celebration as they were specifically used for two purposes. Firstly they
were laid on the road for Jesus to travel over and secondly, the people had
used them to wave cheerfully in welcoming Him, shouting ‘Hosanna! Hosanna!’ Jesus’
arrival in Jerusalem is widely seen as triumphal and the use of the palm leaves
merely confirmed that as prophesied by Zechariah. Understandably then this
event came to be known as Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday.
The use of palm branches in ancient times symbolised goodness
and triumph as we can see above. Even the prophecy of Revelation 7:9 tells of people
from all nations raising not any leaves but specifically palm branches to
honour Christ in an act that mirrors His triumphant entry to Jerusalem prior to
His crucifixion except that this time, He goes on to conquer and vanquish the
enemy.
Similarly also drawings of palm branches are imprinted onto
coins of old and we also see them carved onto walls and doors of important
buildings including the Temple of Solomon. The Bible does have evidence of
this:
“Then he carved all the
walls of the house round about with carved engravings of cherubim, palm trees and open flowers, inner and
outer sanctuaries.” (1 Kings 6:29, NASB)
The holy significance of Ash Wednesday
Image Source: stbridgeteastfalls.org
As the first day of Lent, it is also the starting point of a
period of reflection leading to Easter Sunday. In that same period we are to
exercise self-restraint against creeping or lurking sin. We are also to abstain
from behaving corruptly or acting unworthily.
For Ash Wednesday as much as it is for the whole of Lent, self-control
is important in more ways than one. Requirements in conservative liturgical
churches outline even complete abstinence from luxurious or rich, which means
all forms of meat and dairy products are strictly struck off the diet list.
Eating too much sugar is also considered abhorrent and so is watching
television indulgently.
These practices and more are not unusual at all through Latin
America although for some unusual reason, they also accept that ‘a single full
meal together with two smaller ones in a day’ as fasting on the condition that
these two smaller meals do not add up to one full meal.
Catholics, it seems, tend to go for the full fast or at least,
one that comprises only bread and water. An unusual one comes from the Irish in
the Republic of Ireland who considers Ash Wednesday as a ‘No-Smoking Day,’
citing smoking as a luxurious if not bad habit that should be given up for Lent.
It probably made enough sense for their neighbours in the U.K. because the
English decided to follow suit in 1984, declaring their own ‘No Smoking Day’ in
conjunction with Ash Wednesday. This action eventually became a fixture on the
second Wednesday in March of every year.
While Roman Catholics attend Mass on Ash Wednesday, it is not
a day of holy obligation. Nonetheless it has since become a tradition in the
marking of the beginning of the Lent season. Anglicans also observe Ash
Wednesday in similar vein and some Protestant denominations have also followed
suit but in most cases, Ash Wednesday is non-obligatory and thus has since been
a day of observance as it is with the Evangelical Free Church (EFC) order
throughout the world.
In fact most Protestant Christian churches view Ash Wednesday as
an optional practice but one with a broad focus on repentance during this time
of Lent. The view is that repentance should be something that does not have to
wait till Lent for us to do.
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