Passage
Passage
Easter is coming. For many people, cultures and different traditions, it means reflection and renovation time.
The term “Easter” refers to “Jewish Passover”. By their tradition, Passover relives the memory of the Exodus, that is, the liberation of the Jewish people and their escape from Egypt to Canaan, with Moses as their guide. During the Passover celebration, Jewish families went to Jerusalem, sacrificed a lamb, shared unleavened bread and bitter herbs – symbolizing the sacrifice of the Hebrews of that time, in their search for freedom from slavery.
Many years after the exodus, it is also during the Passover celebrations in Jerusalem that Jesus shared bread and wine with his disciples. This time, however, there would be no lamb at the table, as another body would be sacrificed, as Biblical records report. Jesus would represent the paschal lamb himself, the “Lamb of God”, as mentioned by John the Baptist:
“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”.
In His last supper with his disciples, Jesus would have given new meaning to the Passover tradition. He talks about the new way, the truth and life. In a solemn atmosphere, he washes the disciples’ feet, shares bread and wine, sealing a new covenant. It is also on this night that Jesus leaves one of his teachings, saying:
“I give you a new commandment: that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also love one another”.
His testimony left a lesson of love that profoundly changed not only the Easter celebrations of subsequent generations, but also the course of the history of civilizations.
Hundreds of years after that night in Jerusalem, in 325 AD, it was agreed that the celebration of Easter, being a mobile date in the calendar, would always be celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere – which corresponds to the autumnal equinox in the Southern Hemisphere.
The equinoxes, the successive passages of the seasons, bring with them new rays of sunlight, new colors in nature and new cycles of life. These are passages that can also symbolize another opportunity to reflect on the meanings of Easter and on the teachings of the one who divided history into before and after His passage on Earth, leaving, above all, a great lesson in love.
Source:
Bible, New and Old Testaments.
Alvarez, Rodrigo (2019). “Jesus: the most loved man in History”.
