The word "Easter" is a derivative of the Old European "eastre," meaning the end of winter and the dawning of spring. Easter was originally the name of a most important Pagan festival celebrating the vernal equinox, the time when finally, after a long winter, daylight will now be more predominant than darkness. To the ancient peoples of the Northern Hemisphere Easter time was literally the time when after a dead and dormant winter all life resurrected.
The fact that the then widely celebrated spring equinox, which symbolized the resurrection of life, happened to occur very near the Jewish Passover, the most important holy time of the Jews, was a wonderful convenience aiding the ultimate formalization and spread of institutionalized Christianity.
How better to market what would eventually become the Roman Empire's dominant religion than to join a Jewish holiday with a Pagan holiday and thereby synthesize a Christian holiday?
(For more insight on how Emperor Constantine's spin doctors borrowed from Paganism to sell Christianity as a state religion, see "The Jesus Mysteries," by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy. These authors list the following characteristics of the allegorical godman of Pagan mystery religions popular many centuries before Christianity: "He is God made of flesh, the savior, and 'Son of God.' His father is God and his mother a mortal virgin. He is born in a humble setting on December 25 before three shepherds. He offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites of baptism. He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony. He rides triumphantly into town on a donkey while people wave palm leaves to honor him. He dies at Easter time as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. After his death he descends to hell, then on the third day he rises from the dead and ascends to heaven in glory. His followers await his return as the judge during the Last Days. His death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal of bread and wine, which symbolize his body and blood.")
Jesus and his followers celebrated Jewish Passover, but a uniquely Jewish holy time could not have become a big seller universally throughout the Pagan world. What was needed was a joining. Jewish Passover symbolizes deliverance. Pagan Easter symbolizes resurrection. Why not join two into one announcing the assurance that your resurrection is your deliverance?
Jesus follows through with this joining in A Course in Miracles, telling us that in every aspect of life, in every situation, in every moment even, our resurrection is our deliverance.
Think of any situation in which you are suffering contraction, in which your spirit is seemingly dead enough that you would be tempted to say, "This situation is killing me!" What does Jesus tell us is the one answer to all problems, the one and only deliverance?
"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden." (Matthew 11:28) "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12)
In other words, "Come to light!" or "Go to light!" Which is to say, refocus your attention on your spiritual light and watch your life rise up from seeming darkness and out of the illusion of spiritual death.
The resurrection and deliverance happens every moment in which you could easily have chosen suffering but choose instead to turn to the joy of spiritual light.
Easter can happen any and every moment. It's up to you to choose.
Now your ego might argue something like, "Yes, but some find it easier to reach for the light than others." Your ego might reason, "After all, if you walked down a suburban street in spring, you might notice that while all lawns are resurrecting, some are really lush and green compared to others."
What is it that makes the difference? Fertilizer? What is the best brand of fertilizer spiritually?
How about the powerful spiritual energy of brothers who are around you expanding into awareness of light with you at least as often as you yourself choose to expand into awareness of light?
What if there was a Course in Miracles group you could attend whose members did not have the subsidiary ego goals of getting together to socialize or getting together to intellectualize the Course, but rather the one goal of practicing what the Course truly teaches: surrendering together to the experience of light?
Better yet, what if you could attend a meditation group where members closed their eyes and didn't even talk, but spent their entire time together in light? That would be pretty potent fertilizer, wouldn't it?
Is Easter happening more often and more wonderfully at Center for Total Enlightenment in Utah, where a dozen brothers who live in out-of-this-world light gather several times a week to facilitate your enlightenment?
Or maybe you want the most vibrant lawn in the neighborhood, spiritually speaking. How about the magnificently fertilizing energy of devoted brothers who live together for no other reason than to reach beyond earth altogether? What if you entered into the presence of spiritual energy so enormously glorious that you would have to call upon all your resistance devices with the greatest mock-heroism in order to resist experiencing your light?
Is Easter almost a constant state of being in and around the Miracles Healing Center in Wisconsin where as many as 300 brothers actually live together brighter than sunlight nearly 24 hours a day?
If you could immerse yourself in the magnitude of light that permeates places of spiritual gathering like these, would your resurrection and deliverance be faster or slower, easier or harder, brilliantly glowing or struggling to shine?
Maybe you can hear your ego arguing, "Yes but where I live there is no group like the Utah group and I'm not ready to just give up everything I live for and move to Wisconsin."
Maybe you are ready for a smaller exposure. What if you could enter into spiritual light of enormous magnitude for just a short while, like a brief vacation from the cloudiness with a glorious moment in the sunlight?
If you were to take a vacation from whatever you think is important near the end of this spring to attend THE GREAT AWAKENING, where many hundreds of brothers from many countries in the world will be present to help lift you into God's glory, what would happen to the springing forth of your resurrection and deliverance? Would you be held back? Or would you learn to reach for the sky as never before?
A Course in Miracles is a preparation device, a 1st grade primer, so to speak. It teaches us to experience little instants of holiness. But what if there was a place where you could visit for a while and learn to expand those instants of holiness into an eternity of glory?
Maybe you are not ready for so much sunlight. Maybe you experience only occasional pain and discomfort in your life and your ego has convinced you there is really not a whole lot more available which could be better than the degree of spiritual energy you already feel along with your earthly pleasures and comforts.
Jesus wants you to see things differently. Jesus wants you to know that there is much, much more available than you could possibly imagine in a thousand million years, it's available right now, and nothing you could have on earth could give you even a glimpse of its ultra-magnificent glory.
Jesus wants you in the experience of God's indescribable joy and He is doing everything possible to nudge you toward the decision of giving up and jumping in. Maybe the experience Jesus wants for you could be called your "Big Easter." Maybe the joy human beings have felt around Easter time all these centuries has been but a miniscule hint of the glory you will feel when you say to yourself, "I'm tired of being in this earth! I'm going to really, really really reach for the sun!"
Are you ready to let your resurrection and deliverance be complete? Are you ready for the total Easter experience?
If so, we are totally with you.
HAPPY EASTER!
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