COVID YEAR BUT HAPPY EASTER!
Ashok Silwal / Kathmandu, Nepal
In these days, culminating on next Sunday, Christians are celebrating Easter.
It is not the intention of me to give a lesson of theology… I would absolutely not be capable of it !!!
But he is happy to write some lines about Easter…. because knowing boosts curiosity and mental and cultural openness, tolerance…
And remembering that in the years before Covid-19, many Christians tourists were coming to Nepal and were guided by me too…..
Easter is the main solemnity of Christianity: it celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus, which took place, according to Christian confessions, on the third day of his death on the cross, as narrated in the Gospels.
(Different is the “Jewish Easter” or Passover or Pesah, that lasts eight days and which commemorates the liberation of the Jewish people from Egypt and their exodus to the Promised Land.)
The main symbols of Christian Easter are:
-the hen and the egg: symbol of life and birth ; chocolate eggs are sold everywhere in these days in Christian countries.
-The olive tree and the dove: symbols of peace.
-The lamb: symbol of sacrifice, accomplished by Jesus to save the souls of believers.
-The bell: symbol of joy.
-The bunny: symbol of prolificacy and renewal, mostly in Anglo Saxon tradition.
Normally, families come together… but this year, a little less, due to Covid-19 restrictions (all Europe, for example, is in “Red Zone” with the prohibition of being more than 6 persons..)
But, beyond the rites, the traditions, the habits that belong to our Story, to our Past, to our geography, to our ways of life, to our political and social evolution… AREN’T WE ALL ACTUALLY VERY SIMILAR? Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Shintoists…. aren’t we all looking for answers to the same eternal questions?
Aren’t we all human beings who would like to be reassured and happy?
Aren’t we all women and men who need to make sense of life and death? Of Good and Evil?
So, behind the “appearances”, don’t we all have the same tears and the same smiles?
LET THE PEACEFUL EASTER DOVE FLY OVER ALL THE HUMANITY !
With all our best wishes for a HAPPY EASTER to our Christian friends!
