EASTER 2020 has arrived and we would like to wish our readers and all consumers “A blessed and happy Easter!”. Easter encapsulates four days – Good Friday (the day Lord Jesus was crucified), Holy Saturday (day of solemn waiting ), Easter Sunday (the day Lord Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to Heaven asserting the core meaning of the Christian Faith) and Easter Monday (purely celebratory and not religious). Religious people recognise Sunday only as Easter. Easter, like all ancient religious holy days, has had many secular celebratory customs being attached to it over the centuries.,
This is so for example, with Phagwa which we celebrated a few weeks ago. Thus these holy days have both a religious and a secular aspect, thus our greeting “blessed” refers to the religious and “happy” refers to the celebratory.

Since most writings on Easter of recent decades tend to focus on the secular and celebratory, it would be appropriate to also mention the religious. Before we do so, however, we would like to dismiss the nonsense that because Easter derives its name from the old Anglo-Saxon deity Eostre, it is a pagan festival and has nothing to do with Christianity. In the Latin speaking countries, the name of Easter tends to be derived from the Jewish Passover. In French, for example, it is ‘Pascal’ but the way it is celebrated in English-speaking countries is much the same as in other European countries.

Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Palestine and at his birth, many miracles occurred: He was born of a virgin, the three Kings or Magi in faraway lands knew of his coming birth and set out for Palestine to pay him worship at his birth, or on the night of his birth the hills around Bethlehem became brightly lit with shekinah light and so on. Miraculous occurrences at the birth of other incarnations of God, over the millennia, have
been similarly reported, Lord Krishna’s being an example with which many are acquainted.
Lord Jesus, from his childhood, showed great learning and was able to hold discussions with the High Priests. As he entered adulthood, he began to teach an ethical and spiritual message which was novel and revolutionary in the Middle East and as he taught from town to town, the number of his followers kept growing. As he wandered over Palestine, he also performed many miracles to alleviate human suffering. These included bringing back the dead to life, healing the sick including the blind, saving the lives of fishermen by quelling a storm, feeding those in hunger and saving the life of a woman who was on the point of being stoned to death by a mob.

The Jewish Establishment of High Priests, began to have serious fears that Jesus and his message would destroy the Jewish faith as they knew it and conspired to have him charged for treason and brought before the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate. At that time Palestine was a Roman colony. Pilate, on hearing the charge, felt that Jesus was innocent and was ready to release him but the High Priests brought pressure to bear on Pilate and he was forced to sentence Jesus to death by crucifixion. Crucifixion was the type of execution practised in Palestine and other parts of the Middle East; in Rome, executions were done by strangulation or hanging.

Jesus was crucified on a Friday and the Gospels describe the terrible sufferings and humiliations he suffered before being nailed upon the cross where he suffered a painful and slow death over several hours. When he was dead and the crowd and soldiers had dispersed, his family took his body down from the cross and buried it in their family vault.
In Jerusalem, a large circular church is built over the sarcophagus in which Jesus was buried and thousands of people visit that ‘Church of the Holy Sepulchre’ each year to view it.

Saturday was a time of sorrowing and anxious wait and when Sunday dawned, it was noticed that the large stone which blocked the entrance of the vault in which his sarcophagus had been placed, had been mysteriously shifted. The family went into the vault and found that Jesus had left it. Several persons subsequently saw Jesus and knew he had risen from the dead. One of his disciples, Thomas, however, did not believe that he was seeing Jesus until Jesus had him put his hand on the wounds that were on his body. Lord Jesus had conquered death and this victory over death is what Easter celebrates.
He ascended to Heaven on the same day.

The early Church felt that since Jesus was crucified on a Friday, that Friday should be commemorated as his death anniversary as well as the Sunday following when he victoriously rose from the dead. The lunar calendar was in use at the time and it is this use of the lunar calendar which accounts for Good Friday being commemorated on different dates from year to year. Unlike Christmas, the date of which was fixed on the solar calendar.

Easter is celebrated traditionally in Guyana but in some years, social circumstances may restrain its celebration. This year, for instance, the Easter celebrations had been restrained by the coronavirus pandemic and by distressing political tensions. We will, however, reminisce on a few of Guyana’s main Easter customs.

The Easter church services in Guyana do not differ very much from those in other Western countries.

The established mainstream churches such as the Roman Catholic and Anglican have dramatic and colourful Good Friday and Easter services and they often use traditional church music. The services of the smaller churches are not as elaborate but they are equally suffused with sadness on Good Friday and uplifting joy on Easter. In Guyana, there is a unique custom where Hindus and Muslims attend the Easter services, often invited by their friends and relatives. Hindus participate fully as they believe that God incarnates Himself whenever there is a decline in morality and evil would have overtaken society and Lord Jesus is another of the autars who have been incarnated just as Lord Krishna was.
Special food is associated with festivals. For example,
turkey is associated with American Thanksgiving. Fish is a favourite Easter fare and

desserts tend to be made with eggs such as custards and sponge cakes are preferred as against black cakes. Many families still prefer homemade drinks such as sorrel, jamoon wine and rice wine.

A number of foreign Easter customs have been grafted on to the Guyanese Easter and these include the Easter bunny or rabbit and the Easter egg. Eggs are boiled and coloured mostly with red and children have the fun of discovering them. Of more recent years, chocolate eggs have replaced the coloured boiled eggs and children are more enthusiastic in finding them. Chocolate Easter eggs and other types of chocolates have also become common Easter gifts.

Kite-flying is unique to the Guyanese Easter. On the seawalls, on the sports grounds and on all open spaces thousands of kite flyers from dawn on Easter Monday come out to “raise” their kites.

Kite-flying is always accompanied by picnicking and whole families come out to enjoy the day.

Most children and even adults prefer to make their own kites and there are many types of kites which are seen: frill kites, singing engines, bird kites, box kites, dragon kites, snake kites, caddies and kankawas. Most kites are over two feet in height though some youths create kites of six feet and over!