Easter, Hajj, and the Awakening of the Human Spirit
March 31, 2002, is Easter Sunday. Hajj was observed only a month ago -- during February 21-25. These two important festivals of the two predominant religions in Nigeria have much in common and in some years occur almost about the same time. I recall that in 1998, Eid ul-Adha, which follows the observance of Hajj fell on the Christian Holy Week that includes Good Friday and culminates in Easter.
For Christians, last week was the Holy Week. It is the last week of Lent, a 40-day penitential period of prayer and fasting culminating in Easter. The Friday before Easter is Good Friday, which commemorates the death of Jesus Christ, while Easter celebrates Christ’s resurrection. Easter is central to the whole Christian calendar. The dates of all movable Christian feasts (in contrast to Festivals like Christmas whose dates are fixed) are determined based on the date of Easter. Moreover, the whole liturgical calendar of worship (the dates for observing various Church rituals) is arranged around the date of Easter. Good Friday and Easter Monday are traditionally observed as Public Holidays in Nigeria.
There are two major celebrations in Islam. The first occurs after the completion of Ramadan, the month during which Muslims fast daily from dawn to sunset as part of an effort aimed at purifying the inner self. This celebration is known as Eid ul-Fitr. The second major Islamic celebration takes place during the time of the Hajj, or annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The Hajj is one of the “five pillars” of Islam, and thus an essential part of Muslim faith and practice. Although only the pilgrims in Mecca can participate in the Hajj fully, all other Muslims in the world join with them by celebrating the Eid ul-Adha or Festival of Sacrifice. In Nigeria, public holidays are observed to mark Eid ul-Adhha, just as is the case with Easter.
These two highly important celebrations by the two world religions that have the largest following in Nigeria should remind us all to pay greater attention to the Will of God. To do so, we need to study more closely and reflect more deeply on the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ and of Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him), and even more important, we should let these teachings influence our words, our thoughts, and our actions in our personal and public lives. The unreliable supply of electricity, which often gives rise to obvious darkness around the country, is somewhat symbolic of the invisible dark ethereal environment enveloping our country. This ethereal darkness is caused by our gross violations of the teachings of the Lord Jesus and of Prophet Mohammed. We have never had so many churches and so many mosques; the country has never known a greater intensity of religious activities. And yet corruption, abuse of power and privilege, indifference to the suffering of others, ethnic hatred and distrust, violence and criminality are choking the country as if with an iron grip.
What can be the explanations? Is it possible that these religions no longer have the power to make us good human beings? Is it the case that we do not really understand the teachings brought by Jesus and Prophet Mohammed? Both teachings came from the same God, and both are emphatic about justice and love, and respect for human lives and human rights. May it be that we are mere hypocrites and that we have no conviction in these teachings? We do not need to think deeply before we come to the conclusion that Christian and Muslim ideals are patently lacking in the political life of Nigeria and in the public lives of the vast majority of their practitioners. Easter and Hajj should be opportune times for genuine change, and a genuine striving to live in accordance with the true teachings of the two religions to which the key players in our national life -- North or South, East or West -- claim to belong. In this connection, both the Hajj and Easter are really about spiritual awakening, about inner change, about being truly “born again”.
The Hajj was designed to develop greater awareness of God and to create a sense of spiritual upliftment. It is also meant to be an opportunity to seek forgiveness of sins accumulated throughout one’s life. Prophet Mohammed is reported to have said that a person who performs Hajj properly “will return as a newly born baby”, determined not to sin again, and resolved to forgive the sins others may have committed against him or her. Isn’t that the true meaning of the expression “born again”? Unfortunately, this sublime concept has been debased by some Christian denominations and many individuals, including priests. The Hajj pilgrimage also enables Moslems of different races, ethnic groups, and languages from all over the world to come together in a spirit of universal brotherhood and sisterhood; a spirit which they are supposed to carry back to their different countries, thus promoting understanding and peace around the world.
The term “Easter” was first used when Christianity was introduced to the Saxons. Before this time, the Saxons had held an annual feast in honour of the ancient Teutonic goddess of Spring called Eostre. The name was transferred to the Christian observance of Christ’s resurrection. Spring is the season that marks the awakening of nature following the slumber and death during the Winter months. In the Tropics, such as in Nigeria, this “death and resurrection” of nature is not as dramatic as it is in the Temperate Zone. But the phenomenon does exist. In the dry season, grasses die, some trees shed their leaves, and the activities of some animals (such as snails and toads) are curtailed, similar to the conditions of Winter. At the start of the rainy season, there is a new growth of grasses and leaves, and a revitalization of animal activities, reminiscent of the Spring of the Temperate Zone.
Easter has always been closely linked with Spring, the season of the awakening or the resurrection of nature. In the early years of Christianity, Jewish Christians observed the resurrection and Passover together on the 14th day of Nisan, the Jewish month roughly corresponding with April. However, Gentile Christians celebrated the resurrection every Sunday with a special emphasis on the Sunday closest to the 14th day of Nisan. To settle this difference, church leaders fixed the date for Easter at the Nicene Council in 325 A.D. They decided that Easter would be the first Sunday following the Paschal full moon. The Paschal full moon is the first full moon after the vernal equinox, which occurs on March 21. And March 21 also marks the beginning of the Spring season. The system that was agreed at the Nicene Council for fixing the date of Easter is still followed today. Therefore, Easter Sunday moves between March 22 and April 25. However, the Eastern Orthodox Church follows a slightly different calculation. As a result the Orthodox Church Easter, although sometimes coinciding with that of other Christians, can fall anywhere from one to five weeks later. But it still remains a Spring-time celebration. It is interesting to note the dependence of the date of Easter on the moon, just like Muslim festivals. As a celebration of nature, Easter should become a spiritual festival for all human beings, regardless of religion.
In the light of the above, no matter how else we may think about Easter, we ought to consider it a time for the awakening of the inner self; a resurrection of our individual spirits from spiritual slumber as desired by the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a time to rededicate ourselves to doing, not just talking about, the Will of God as taught by Jesus, so that we human spirits that have journeyed as immature spirits into the deep vale of the world of matter may one day resurrect and ascend as fully mature spirits into Paradise, our permanent home.
May all Nigerians, particularly our Moslem and Christian political and religious leaders, be imbued with the sense of love, justice, and tolerance that comes with genuine spiritual renewal, which is the essential purpose of both Easter and Hajj. And may such love, justice, and tolerance translate into actions so that rays of spiritual light may begin to break through Nigeria’s ethereal darkness. Amen.
Conflicts occur among the major religions primarily because religions have been transformed into platforms for the acquisition of earthly power, material wealth and influence, and no longer concern themselves with the function of encouraging individual search for the Will of God. The messages on which existing religions are based were adjusted to the levels of spiritual maturity, intellectual understanding, earthly circumstances and the needs of the people to whom they were addressed at the time they were given. The messages were not intended to constitute, for all time, the sum total of human knowledge of God and His Will; they were never meant literally to be the final word. In this connection, Abd-ru-shin, the Author of the Grail Message, “In the Light of Truth”, wrote:
“If in the course of thousands of years men had not always acted as they still do today, if they had not time and again distorted everything that was intended to help them, in order to adapt it to their human way of thinking and their earthly desires, there would now be only one uniform teaching here on earth, issuing from the Will of God. There would not be so many kinds of denominations. All the teachings that have come to the earth in the past would, united, form a single flight of steps to the pedestal on which the Truth is to stand, as it has so often been proclaimed to mankind in various promises. There would be no differences in the interpretations, much less differences in the teachings themselves! For all the teachings were at one time willed by God, precisely adapted to the individual peoples and countries, and formed in complete accord with their actual spiritual maturity and receptivity.”