why celebrate Easter: The Triumphant entry is the journey to Easter
Why celebrate Easter: The triumphant entry is the journey to the cross.
People celebrate for different reasons. The most widely and reverently celebrated events are religious events that marks a particular period in a religious history. Such religious celebrations usually become a religious tradition.
The Christians celebration of Easter is one of such celebrations. Easter celebration unlike Christian’s celebration of the birth of Jesus which is base on date, 25th December, is based on days. The celebration of Easter is to remember the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The celebration of Easter by days has made some people to wonder why it is done that way. For instance let us assume that Jesus was born on 25th December (not all Christians accept the date) then he must have died on a particular date in a particular month. Consequently the celebration of his death should be on that particular date just like his birth. Since there was no recorded date of his death, the celebration of Easter period is calculated.
The Eastern orthodox churches, and the Western churches have different periods of Easter celebration. This is because of the way the calculate it differently using different methods and events for instance the Eastern Orthodox church calculate it in line with the Jewish Passover. Some Christian sect that do not celebrate Easter like the others claim that the celebration is of pagan origin and was introduced into the church to celebrate the rebirth of the goddess of fertility.
Whatever is the claim and the right way of calculating the date is not the main subject here because it can only add to the argument. It is better to talk about the events as recorded in the bible and more widely believed and the journey to the cross. Christians believe that Easter marks the time Jesus paid the ultimate price for the sin of the world by his death on the cross. Secondly, his resurrection is a claim that he defeated death and therefore he lives on. That is to say Jesus is still alive because the strength of death could not hold him.
Some Christians usually observe the holy week which starts from a Palm Sunday to the death and resurrection of Christ. Usually despite that Good Friday was the day Jesus was crucified and as such the day the ultimate price was paid, some Christian sects do not have fun on that day as a sign of remorse for the sin of man and death of Jesus. The Palm Sunday, this is the triumphant entry into Jerusalem. The gospel of Matthew and Mark gave a different account of it. Matthew recorded that Jesus sent for a Donkey, and a Colt. That he sat of them to fulfill the prophet saying. Mark recorded that Jesus sent for a Colt which no one has sat (Matthew 21:1-11 and Mark 11: 1-10). After the recent Palm Sunday, a friend said some things about the tied Colt and that made me to link its significance to some situations of life.
The Colt was tied and nobody has used it. One can rightly say that the Colt served no purpose and could not even move because it was tied. That same Colt that served no purpose was loosed and it shared a part of the victorious entry into Jerusalem. Nobody knows how long it was tied until the appointed time for it to be set free and made a part of a glorious history. Some people might have thought the Colt was useless because it served no purpose but today it is a part of a remarkable event.
This can be linked to some situations in life where it seems the struggles of life tied us down and we could not move further. Some people can count us out seeing us in such situation because they thought we could not get out of it. But if we can patiently continue to work ourselves out of such undesirable situation and wait for the appointed time for a positive change without giving up easily, only then we shall have a story to tell for others to learn. Most people that are, today, part of history because of their achievements were once counted out and called losers but they did not give up in the struggle.
Therefore the journey to the cross started with the command, “Go into the village opposite you; and as soon as you have entered it you will find a Colt tied, on which no one has sat. Loose it and bring it” (Mark 11:2). After the Colt was loosed, Jesus used it to continue his journey to the cross where he opened a new way for humanity and, like the Christians claim; he died to set man free, that is to save man. It follows that Jesus first set the Colt free and used it victoriously then he went ahead to set man free and he is still using men to save other men, help the afflicted, among others. That is the journey to the cross.
