The contrasts between Easter and Christmas
In the run-up to Christmas, many advertisements are about a delicious Christmas dinner, but rarely about a Christmas breakfast. This is in contrast to Easter breakfast, where advertisements focus on eggs, croissants and Jus d'Orange. Christmas dinner features gourmets, meat, ragout and other luxury items.
In addition to commercials of food, there are figures who bring joy to Christmas and Easter. For example, Santa Claus brings presents in the sock, and the Easter Bunny brings eggs.
If you ask the average Dutch person what Easter and Christmas are about, you don't often hear the words Jesus or God. More than half of the Dutch have no faith and therefore often do not know the meaning of these feasts, but only about the days off, the cozy get-togethers and the delicious food.
In church one often hears that without Easter there is no Christmas and without Christmas there is no Easter. This is because Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, while Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. Before Jesus was resurrected, he first had to die. He died as a criminal, crucified for our sins, for my sins.
As a child, I thought Jesus died on the cross after being nailed and losing too much blood, or something along those lines. But after delving more into His death on the cross, I found out that He suffocated. So the cross is not so much a way to kill someone, but rather to make someone suffer slowly until death follows.
In the Bible, Luke explains the birth of Jesus quite succinctly, while the condemnation, crucifixion and resurrection are described in much greater detail. One verse says that Pilate gave the people their way, letting Barabbas go, but had Jesus scourged and gave him to be crucified. In our time, the word "scourging" is not very well known, but explained by the Evangelists through The Passion of the Christ attempts to make clear what the word means.
At Christmas we have a much more elaborate description, but our ideas about the nativity scene are, I think, a totally different reality than what commerce tries to put in our heads. It is not just about the birth of Jesus, but much more than that.
There are many differences between Easter and Christmas, but also similarities. The Bible teaches us that all of human history is fulfilled in the Resurrection. Without Christmas there would be no Easter, and without Easter we would not celebrate Christmas. Because Jesus disappeared from many people's lives, the alternative protagonists such as Santa Claus and Easter Bunny were created.
I could celebrate Christmas just fine without Christmas dinner, and Easter breakfast is not a requirement. But I wouldn't know what to do if I couldn't go to church or celebrate in some other way at Christmas and Easter. For me, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
