Easter

Easter is one of the four major yearly Christian festivals, celebrating the resurrection of Christ-Jesus three days after the Mystery of Golgotha.

The date of Easter falls between March 22 and April 25 and is different every year in relation with the spring equinox and the Moon. This has an important spiritual meaning, in that Easter is a festival of spiritualization and is therefore not just bound to the rhythms of the Earth, but to heavens.

Every year at Easter, Master Jesus and his disciples visit the place where the Mystery of Golgotha ​​took place (1912-05-05-GA130)

Aspects

• timing: Easter as a movable festival
  • the date of Easter is linked to the relationship between sun and moon: the first Sunday after the first full moon in spring, that is, the first full moon after the twenty-first day of March (1916-06-06-GA169, 1920-04-02-GA198 - but also in 1908-04-15-GA265, 1924-04-21-GA233)
  • indicates how through the Christ Impulse man is to be set free from the forces of earth-evolution
    • In order to determine the time of the Easter festival, note must be taken each year of the constellations in the heavens: the event's significance lies not merely within the course of earth-evolution, but within the whole world-order into which man has been placed.
  • relation with Sun and Moon
    • symbolic meaning explained in view of ancient experiences of initiation in Sun-Moon Mysteries (1924-04-21-GA233)
    • see also 1914-01-02-GA149 and Schema FMC00.116, and Buhler in the 'Further reading' section below

• link with resurrection (and 'All Souls' days or the day of the dead), for the resurrection: see Christ Module 8 - Resurrection and the topic page Cleansed phantom
• Easter is the day after the so-called 'Holy Week': starting Palm Sunday (the Sunday before Easter, celebrating the entry of Christ Jesus into Jerusalem) and ending on Holy Saturday (commemorating the burial of the Christ and his descent into the underworld). The crucifixion of Christ Jesus is commemorated on Good Friday, the Friday before Easter.
• meeting at Easter every year where the place where the Mystery of Golgotha ​​took place (1912-05-05-GA130)
  • "Master Jesus, who has sheltered the Christ within himself, visits the site every year at Easter time where the Mystery of Golgotha ​​took place. Whether Jesus is in the flesh or not, he visits this place every year, and there the disciples who have attained the Reffe can have their union with him."
  • the poet Anastasius Grün (1806-1876) described five such meetings (one of which lying in the future), which Rudolf Steiner comments in 1912-05-05-GA130
• other:
  • Adonis Mysteries as precursor of Easter festival 1924-04-19-GA233
  • Raphael (<-> Mercury) is the great teacher of healing forces in connection with Christ and Easter (1923-10-07-GA229)
  • see also: Three days descent into Hades

Inspirational quotes

1916-06-06-GA169

To celebrate Easter rightly, our souls must be imbued with something of tremendous sublimity .. we are led to the great and sublime idea that the divine being descended to earth, incarnated in a human body, and passed through death. The enigma of death and of the preservation of the eternal life of the soul in death .. Easter brings all this before our souls

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.116 shows the symbol for Good Friday and Easter: the spiritual sun in the physical sun.

Lecture coverage and references

Overview coverage

Though there are many lectures where Easter is covered over the 20 years of lecturing, one can highlight two main sources to initialize one study as together they provide 12 lectures on Easter

• the mini cycle with four lectures, given 1924-04-GA233A: The Easter Festival in relation to the Mysteries
• the book called 'The Festivals and their Meaning II: Easter' a volume that bundles 8 lectures given between the years 1908 and 1922.

Reference extracts

1906-04-12-GA054

is a full lecture on Easter

1907-04-12-GAXXX

is called 'Easter and the awakening to cosmic thought'

1908-04-13-GA233A

Lecture called 'Easter: the mystery of the future'

1909-04-10-GA233A

Lecture called 'Spiritual bells of Easter. Part I'

1909-04-11-GA233A

Lecture called: 'Spiritual bells of Easter. Part II'

1914-01-02-GA149

See also Schema FMC00.116: The moon sickle represents the physical, the dark section represents the spiritual power of the Sun. The fixing of the date for Easter is connected with this.

1912-05-05-GA130

full lecture see Eightfold Path of Buddha#1912-05-05-GA130

As I have spoken here today, the members of the Rosicrucian circles have spoken in narrow, small circles in recent centuries. Today it can be spoken in front of larger crowds. Those who have the mission of working within the spiritual-scientific movement as executors of that which streams into humanity from the Mystery of Golgotha, they know that Jesus, who has sheltered the Christ within himself, visits the site every year at Easter time where the Mystery of Golgotha ​​took place. Whether Jesus is in the flesh or not, he visits this place every year, and there the disciples who have attained the Reffe can have their union with him.

A poet - Anastasius Grün - felt this as an individual coming down and visiting the place where the Mystery of Golgotha ​​took place every year on the first Easter holiday. He describes five such meetings of the master with his disciples.

• The first taking place after the destruction of Jerusalem,
• the second after the capture by the crusaders,
• the third: Ahasuerus staying on Calvary,
• the fourth a praying monk, the salvation of ... [internet translation] Hoping for conquerors, as sects of various kinds are scattered about the earth and quarrel with each other, while the place of his work is overlooked by the one who brought the greatest message of peace to earth.

These are the four pictures of Jesus' past visits to the site of his ministry on Golgotha.

[fifth image]

• Then, in the poem Rubble, Anastasius Grün creates an image of a future descent on Golgotha. What he describes lies in the distant future: this situation of the future, which he handles like the force of peace that will then reign on earth. It lies in Christianity, which is felt to be Rosicrucian rather than denominational. Then he sees children playing. They dig - even if this picture is still utopian now - they dig an object made of iron and they don't know what it is. those only who still have distant news of the long-gone quarrel between men, they know that it is a sword. In the time of peace one no longer recognizes the purpose of a sword and uses it as a ploughshare. And a tiller digs on, finds an object of stone. Again, you don't see that. It was banned from Earth for a while, say those who still know of it. People didn't recognize it anymore! Once they used it as a symbol of strife - it is a stone cross - but now, as the people gather under the future impulse of Christ Jesus, it becomes something else. In the time of peace one no longer recognizes the purpose of a sword and uses it as a ploughshare.

And how does the poet describe this to us in 1836? So he describes to us this symbol of the mission of the correctly understood Christ impulse:

...

[see full lecture for continuation]

1916-06-06-GA169

Easter, however, although celebrated at the time of nature's awakening, leads us to the gates of death. We can characterize the difference between the two festivals by saying that while there is much that is lovely and speaks to all human hearts in Christmas, there is something infinitely sublime in Easter. To celebrate Easter rightly, our souls must be imbued with something of tremendous sublimity. We are led to the great and sublime idea that the divine being descended to earth, incarnated in a human body, and passed through death. The enigma of death and of the preservation of the eternal life of the soul in death — Easter brings all this before our souls.

...

On the other hand, Easter is linked to the relationship between sun and moon and is always celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon in spring, that is, the first full moon after the twenty-first day of March. We fix the date of Easter according to the relative position of sun and moon. You see how wonderfully Christmas is connected with the earth and Easter with the cosmos. Christmas reminds us of what is most holy in the earth, and Easter of what is holiest in the heavens.

1920-04-02-GA198

Ever since the early days of Christianity it has been the custom to draw a distinction between the festivals of Christmas and of Easter in that the Christmas festival has been made immovable, having been fixed at a point of time a few days after the 21st of December, the winter solstice, whereas the day of the Easter festival is determined by a particular constellation of the stars, a constellation of the stars which unites earth and man with the worlds beyond the earth. Tomorrow will be the first full moon of spring and upon this full moon will fall the rays of the springtime sun, for since the 21st of March the sun has been in the sign of spring. When, therefore, men on earth celebrate a Sunday — a day, that is, which should remind them of their connection with the sun-forces — when the Sunday comes that is the first after the full moon of spring, then is the time to keep the Easter festival. Easter is thus a movable festival. In order to determine the time of the Easter festival, note must be taken each year of the constellations in the heavens.

Principles such as these were laid down at a time when traditions of wisdom were still current among mankind, traditions that originated from ancient atavistic clairvoyant faculties and gave man a knowledge far surpassing the knowledge that present-day science can offer. And such traditions were a means for bringing to expression man's connection with the worlds beyond the earth. They always point to something of supreme importance for the evolution [of] mankind.

The rigid point of time fixed for the Christmas festival indicates how closely that festival is bound up with the earthly, for its purpose is to remind us of the birth of the Man into whom the Christ Being afterwards entered.

The Easter festival, on the other hand, is intended to remind us of an event whose significance lies, not merely within the course of earth-evolution, but within the whole world-order into which man has been placed. Therefore the time of the Easter festival must not be determined by ordinary earthly conditions; it is a time that can be ascertained only when man turns his thoughts to the worlds beyond the earth. And there is deeper meaning still in this plan of a movable time for the Easter festival. It indicates how through the Christ Impulse man is to be set free from the forces of earth-evolution pure and simple. For through knowledge of that which is beyond the earth, man is to become free of the evolution of the earth, and this truth is indicated in the manner of dating the Easter festival. It contains a call to man to lift himself up to the worlds beyond the earth; it contains a promise to man that in the course of world-history it shall be possible for him, through the working of the Christ Impulse, to become free of earthly conditions.

To understand all that is implied in this manner of dating the Easter festival, it will be helpful to turn our minds to early secrets of the beginnings of Christianity, to some of those early mysteries which during a certain period of earthly evolution have become more and more veiled and hidden from the materialistic view of the world which arose at the beginning of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch and must now be vanquished and superseded. In order to see the whole matter in a true light it will be necessary first of all to consider the part played by the figure of St. Paul in the evolution of the Christ Impulse within the whole history of mankind. ... [continued]

1921-03-27-GA203

link to DE

1923-10-07-GA229

The Easter imagination

1924-04-GA233A: The Easter Festival in relation to the Mysteries

1924-04-19-GA233

Adonis Mysteries as precursor of Easter festival

summary from Christian Karl's Handbook:

The Easter festival has its pagan precursors not in spring festivals but in autumn festivals in which a likeness of the god of beauty and youthful strength (Adonis cult) was immersed in the sea or a lake near the mystery site, acconompanied with funeral songs, for three days, and was lifted out of the water again with cheering. This was an image of the initiation that was carried out inside of the mystery site. In the MoG happened on the physical plane what had taken place, otherwise, only within the human soul at initiation. The inability of understanding the resurrection was the reason to lean the Easter festival on springtime.

1924-04-21-GA233

Easter as a Chapter in the Mystery Wisdom of Man

(extract does not reflect the lecture storyline)

In expanding today what we have been discussing in the previous lectures I should like to take up the astronomical aspect of the Easter Festival; and in order to do this it will be necessary to touch upon some of the facts referring to the so-called secret of the Moon.

...

This initiation was really of such a nature as to make the mystic one with the moonlight; but it was by means of his own moonlight existence that he looked into the Sun.

And now he reflected as follows: the Sun sends its light to the Moon because this must not be imparted to man directly. The result is moonlight in conjunction with the planetary forces, and out of this the etheric body is formed. — That was the secret known to him who was initiated in this way. He also knew to what extent he bore within him the power of the spiritual Sun: he had seen it, become conscious of it; and this was the stage of initiation at which the initiate became a Christ bearer — that is, a Sun-being bearer, not a Sun-being recipient. Just as the Moon itself, when at full, is a sunlight bearer, so man became a Christ bearer, a christophoros. This initiation leading to the stage of christophoros was thus an absolutely real experience.

Now imagine this actual experience through which the mystic sped away from the Earth, as it were, and ascended as an initiated Earth-man to the light-being; and imagine this inner, human Easter experience of former times transformed into a cosmic festival. In later ages men no longer knew that such things could happen; that man is really able to withdraw from Earth conditions, unite with those of the Moon, and from the Moon behold the Sun. But the memory of it was to be preserved, and this we have in the Easter Festival.

The ability to experience all this did not pass over into the later consciousness that was becoming materialistic; instead it turned into an abstract conception. Men no longer looked inward and said, I can unite with the moonlight. They looked at the Moon, the full Moon, and said, It is not a question of my aspiring upward: it is the Earth that strives to ascend. And when is this effort at its height? When spring begins, when there burst forth from the surface of the Earth all the forces that had lain dormant in seeds and plants under the ground. On the Earth they become plants, but they go further: they stream out into cosmic space.

The old Mysteries employed this image: man can most easily attain to the Moon-Sun initiation and become a christophoros in the season when the inner Earth forces, by means of the stems and leaves of plants, carry out of the ground what then streams forth from the Earth into the cosmos; for then he floats, as it were, on the forces that in spring ray out from the Earth and up to the Moon. But it must be the light of the full Moon.

All this, then, became a memory, but it also became abstract ... It must be the light of the full Moon. ... Subconsciously, no longer with the clear knowledge that this could be a human experience, people imagined that something or other — not man himself — streamed toward the full Moon, the first one after the beginning of spring. And what can this full Moon do now? It beholds the Sun; that is, the first day dedicated to the Sun: the first succeeding Sunday. Just as once a christophoros, from the viewpoint of the Moon, beheld the Sun-being, so now the Moon beholds the Sun — that is, its symbolization in Sunday.

We have the beginning of spring, March 21st, and the forces of the Earth are burgeoning forth into the universe. We must await the proper observer, the full Moon.

March 21st — full Moon — Sunday.

What does the Moon observe? The Sun; and the following Sunday is fixed as Easter Sunday. This is an abstract way of determining the date, surviving from a very real Mystery event that in former times frequently occurred for many men.

That is actually what our present spring Easter Festival has come to be. It represents a Mystery act that has often been performed in spring; but it is not the one I described day before yesterday. The latter led man to a comprehension of the death event. I explained that

• the idea of resurrection, clarified by something like the Adonis celebration in the fall, really led men to the experience of death, to the spiritual resurrection after about three days;
• and this process of resurrection really belongs in the autumn, for the reasons I gave.

The process I described today is a different one, performed in other Mysteries for certain initiations — those of the Sun and Moon; and this process confronted the neophyte with life's beginning. So you see, we can look back at a period in which certain Mysteries saw the descent of man from the pre-earthly to the earthly life, while others dwelt on the ascent in the spirit. But in later epochs, when the living substance of man's relation to the cosmic spirit could no longer be discerned, men went so far as simply to combine the autumn Mystery of the ascent with the spring Mystery of the descent into one festival.

Fleeting youth

1912-09-23-GA139

What was it that really happened that they did not at first capture Him, and then sought reasons to capture Him like a murderer?

It is only possible to understand what happened if we look at it in the light of occult truths. I have already pointed out how the Mark Gospel clearly describes occult and spiritual facts intermingled at random with purely physical facts. And we shall show how Christ clearly does not limit His activity to the deeds of the single personality, Jesus of Nazareth. He worked upon His disciples when He came to them by the lake in an external form but outside His physical body. So while His physical body might be in one place or another, He could while outside it inspire into the souls of His disciples all that He did, and all that radiated from Him as spiritual impulse. And we shall point out that the Mark Gospel makes it abundantly clear how human beings hear what He preaches and teaches while He appears to them in an external form outside His physical body. What He says lives in their souls; though they do not understand it, it comes to life within their souls. In the individuality of Christ and in the crowd it is both earthly and supra-earthly at the same time.

The Christ is everywhere connected with a widely extended, actively working aura. This aura was present and active because He was linked with the souls of those whom He had chosen, and it remained present as long as He was linked to them. The cup had not passed away from Him; the chosen human beings had shown no comprehension. So this aura gradually withdrew from the man Jesus of Nazareth; Christ became ever more estranged from the Son of Man, Jesus of Nazareth. Toward the end of His life Jesus of Nazareth was more and more alone, and the Christ became ever more loosely connected with Him.

[youth]

Although the cosmic element was there until the moment pictured as that of the sweating of blood in Gethsemane, and Christ up to this moment was fully united with Jesus of Nazareth, now through the failure of human beings to understand this connection the link was loosened.

And whereas earlier the cosmic Christ was active in the temple and drove out the money-changers, expounding mighty teachings, and nothing happened to Him, now, when Jesus of Nazareth was only loosely connected with the Christ the posse could come near Him. However, we can still see the cosmic element present, but less and less connected with the Son of Man. This is what makes the whole episode so soul-shattering!

Because the threefold understanding could not be forthcoming, what did the men finally have in their hands? What could they seize, what could they condemn, what could they nail to the cross?

The Son of Man! And the more they did all this, the more did the cosmic element withdraw that had entered the life of earth as a youthful impulse. It escaped them. For those who sentenced Him and carried out the judgment there remained only the Son of Man, around whom only hovered what was to come down to earth as a youthful cosmic element.

No Gospel other than that of St. Mark tells how only the Son of Man remained, and that the cosmic element only hovered around Him. Thus in no other Gospel do we perceive the cosmic fact in relation to the Christ event expressed with such clarity, the fact that at the very moment when men who failed to understand laid their violent human hands upon the Son of Man, the cosmic element escaped them.

The youthful cosmic element which from that turning point of time entered earth evolution as an impulse, escaped. All that was left was the Son of Man; and this is clearly emphasized in the Mark Gospel. Let us read the passage and find out if the Mark Gospel does indeed emphasize how, just at this moment in the unfolding of events, the cosmic acts in relation to the human.

And Jesus spoke to them, “You have set out with swords and sticks to take me prisoner, as if I were a murderer. I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.” And they all forsook him and fled. (Mark 14:48-50.)

He stands alone. But what has become of the youthful, cosmic element? Think of the loneliness of this man, permeated as He was by the cosmic Christ, who now confronts the posse like a murderer. And those who should have understood Him flee! “And they all forsook Him and fled,” it says in the 50th verse. Then in verses 51 and 52:

And there was a youth among his followers, who wore a fine linen garment over his bare body, and they seized him. But he let go of the linen garment and fled naked.

Who is this youth? Who was it who escaped here? Who is it who appears here, next to Christ Jesus, nearly unclothed, and then slips away unclothed?

This is the youthful cosmic impulse, it is the Christ who slips away, who now has only a loose connection with the Son of Man.

Much is contained in these 51st and 52nd verses. The new impulse retains nothing of what former times were able to wrap around man. It is the entirely naked, new cosmic impulse of earth evolution. It remains with Jesus of Nazareth, and we find it again at the beginning of the sixteenth chapter.

And when the Sabbath was over Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices and went there to anoint him. And early in the morning on the first day of the week they came to the tomb as the sun was rising.

And they said among themselves, “Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?” And when they looked up they saw that the stone was rolled away, for it was really very large.

And as they entered the tomb they saw a youth sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white robe; and they were startled.

But he said to them, “Do not be frightened. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified one. He has risen!” (Mark 16:1-6.)

This is the same youth. In the whole artistic composition of the Gospels nowhere else does this youth confront us, the youth who slips away from the people at the moment when they condemn the Son of Man, who is there again when the three days are over, and who from now onward is active as the cosmic principle of the Earth.

Nowhere else in the Gospels — you should compare the others — except in these two passages does this youth confront us, and in such a grandiose manner. Here we have all we need in order to understand the profound meaning of just this Gospel of St. Mark, which is telling us that we have to do with a cosmic event, with a cosmic Christ. Only now do we understand why the remainder of the Mark Gospel had to be artistically composed as it was.

It is indeed remarkable that, after this significant appearance of the youth has come twice before us, the Gospel quickly comes to an end, and all that remains are a few striking sentences. For it is scarcely possible to imagine that anything that came later could have still yielded any further enhancement. Perhaps the sublime and marvelous element could have been enhanced, but not what is soul-shattering and of significance for earth evolution. Consider again this composition of the Mark Gospel: the monologue of God; the cosmic conversation on the mountain above the earth to which the three disciples were called but did not understand; then Gethsemane, the scene on the Mount of Olives when Christ had to acknowledge that those who had been chosen could not attain to an understanding of what was about to happen; how He had to tread this path alone, how the Son of Man would suffer and be crucified. Then the world-historical loneliness of the Son of Man who is abandoned, abandoned by those He had chosen and then abandoned gradually by the cosmic principle. Thus, after we have understood the mission and significance of the youth who slips away from the eyes and hands of men, we come to understand in an especially profound manner the words, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34.) Then the reappearance of the youth, whereupon it is briefly shown how the youth is a spiritual, super-sensible being, who becomes sense-perceptible only through special circumstances, when He first shows himself to Mary Magdalene. Then afterward, “He revealed Himself in another form to two of them as they went for a walk into the countryside.” (Mark 16:12.) The physical could not have showed itself “in another form.”

1912-09-24-GA139

quote A

The Gospel itself clearly points to what has appeared in our time in the manner just described. Those people who wish to remain materialists and to believe in nothing whatever beyond what can be attained by materialistic consciousness based on sense perception can find no path leading to Christ Jesus. For this path has been closed because those who stood closest to Christ left Him just at the time the Mystery of Golgotha was taking place. It was only later that they met Him again, thus failing to participate in what happened in Palestine on the physical plane. And everyone knows for certain that no credible documents have been furnished by the other side of the threshold. Yet in the Mark Gospel and in the other Gospels descriptions of this very Mystery of Golgotha have been given.

How then did these descriptions come into being? It is of the utmost importance for us to picture this to ourselves. Let us consider the descriptions given in one instance, in the Gospel of St. Mark.

Even though the description is short and concise, it is in fact indicated to us quite adequately how after the scene of the Resurrection the youth in the white garment, that is to say, the cosmic Christ, again showed Himself to the disciples after the Mystery had been accomplished ...

and gave certain impulses to them. As a consequence the apostles, among whom we should include Peter, could be enkindled to clairvoyant vision, so that afterward they could see clairvoyantly what they had been unable to see with their physical eyes because they fled. The eyes of Peter, and of others who were permitted to be their pupils after the Resurrection of Christ Jesus, were opened clairvoyantly so that they could through clairvoyance behold the Mystery of Golgotha.

quote B

At this point I should like to remind you of something I have often pointed out with regard to the difference between male and female, pointing out the fact that to some extent the female element — not the single individual woman but rather “womanhood” — has not entirely descended to the physical plane, whereas the man — again not a single individuality, not man in a particular incarnation but “manhood” — has crossed the line and descended lower. As a result true humanity lies between man and woman; and it is for this reason that a human being also changes sex in different incarnations. But it is already the case that the woman, as such, because of the different formation of her brain and the different way in which she can use it, is able to grasp spiritual ideas with greater facility. By contrast the man because of his external physical corporeality is much better adapted to think himself into materialism, because, if we wish to express the matter crudely, his brain is harder. The female brain is softer, not so stubborn, that is to say in general — I am not referring to individual personalities. In the case of individual personalities there is no need to flatter oneself, for many truly obstinate heads sit on many a female body — to say nothing of the reverse! But on the whole it is true that it is easier to make use of a female brain if one is to understand something exceptional, as long as the will to do so is also present. It is for this reason that the evangelist after the Mystery of Golgotha allows women to appear first.

And now, as the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, brought spices, so that they could go and anoint him. (Mark 16:1.)

And it was to them that the youth, that is, the cosmic Christ, first appeared; and only afterward to the male disciples. True occultism, true spiritual science is interwoven into the composition and details of the contents of the Gospels, and especially of the concise Mark Gospel.

1985 - Stewart Easton

It is only in the Mark Gospel that we are told of "the young man who fled away naked." This is the youthful Christ Impulse which thereafter reappears only once, in the form of the young man seen by Mary Magdalene and the other women at the sepulcher on Easter morning.

It goes without saying that no biblical commentator has ever been able to make sense of this "young man," who has even sometimes been identified by them as the writer of the Gospel himself. From what Steiner says it would seem that, of the four evangelists, only Mark perceived this being clairvoyantly and understood its significance, as it was Mark also who grasped the full poignancy of the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane when the disciples who had vowed to experience the Mystery of Golgotha with their Master could not remain awake, leaving Christ Jesus to undergo it alone.

Immediately afterward in the Mark Gospel comes the betrayal and the flight of the disciples, following which the “young man,” the Christ Impulse, also abandons Jesus of Nazareth, who as His last words from the Cross, as recorded by Mark and Matthew, was to utter the cry “My God, my God why has thou forsaken me?,” words whose true meaning is here revealed in all its depth by Steiner.

The cosmic Christ “hovered” over Jesus at the Crucifixion and surely experienced it, even though it was Jesus, the Son of Man, the highest ideal of man, as Steiner calls Him here, whom men should have revered as their highest ideal instead of spitting on Him and reviling Him, who was nailed to the Cross and died on it. Thus the divine being, the Christ, who could not as a divine being of His exalted rank actually die, could nevertheless experience death through the link He had forged with the three sheaths of Jesus during the three years since the Baptism, when He had lived in them as their “I.”

Music

Johann Sebastian Bach

Besides his famous Passions, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) also wrote the 'Easter Oratorio' (BWV 249), written in the period 1725-1735. It has four characters assigned to four voice parts; Simon Peter (tenor), John the Apostle (bass), Mary Magdalene (alto) and Mary Jacobe (soprano).

Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov

Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) wrote the 'Russian Easter Festival Overture' in 1888 to capture 'the transition from the solemnity and mystery of the evening of Passion Saturday to the unbridled pagan-religious celebrations of Easter Sunday morning’. The ouverture is named for 'Svetlïy prazdnik' or ‘Bright holiday’, as Easter is known in Russia and includes themes from Orthodox chants ('the Obikhod') part or Russian liturgy.

See also:

• Cross at Golgotha#Music
• Christ Module 8 - Resurrection#Music

Related pages

• Cross at Golgotha
• Christ Module 17 - The experience of the year
• Christ Module 8 - Resurrection

References and further reading

• Die Tatsache des durch den Tod gegangenen Gottes-Impulses : Fünf Ostern von Anastasius Grün Rudolf Steiner ; herausgegeben von Marie Steiner Boek, Duits, 40 p. Ook opgenomen in: Das esoterische Christentum und die geistige Führung der Menschheit (GA 130). GA 130 C Philosophisch-Antroposophischer Verlag am Goetheanum Dornach 1935
• Eleanor C. Merry: 'Easter : the legends and the fact (1967)
• Friedrich Benesch: 'Easter' (1981 in EN, original in DE 1978 as 'Passion-Tod-Auferstehung', also in NL 1984 as 'Pasen - kiem van menswording : opstanding als huidige en toekomstige werkelijkheid')
• Karl König: 'An Easter play' (1981)
  • prologue : Maundy Thursday, in the ether realm of speech
  • part 1 : Good Friday, in a street in Athens in front of the Temple of Zeus
  • part 2 : Easter Sunday, at the foot of the Hill of Golgotha, at the tomb of Christ
  • part 3 : Easter Sunday, in Ireland on a hilltop in the midst of a druid sanctuary
• Maya Peter: 'Um Ostern mit Kindern : Geschichten, Gedichte, Legenden für Kinder bis zum 10. Lebensjahr' (1987)
• Walther Buhler (1913-1995): 'Why is Easter a Movable Feast' (The spiritual significance of the changing date of Easter) (2017)
  • Buhler demonstrates a profound connection between the rhythms of sun and moon and the historical events of Christ's death and resurrection. He argues that, in the same way the rhythm of day and night is reflected in waking and sleeping, celebrating Easter on a different date each year reflects the deep connection and harmony between human beings and the rhythms of the cosmos.
• Paul W. Scharff: Easter Festival 1991 – Christian Rosenkreutz in relation to Easter

Easter, Ascension, Pentecost

• Ed. Claudine Henny-van der Wyck: 'Mysterie van Golgotha : Pasen, Hemelvaart, Pinksteren' (1992)
• Ed. Zonnejaargroep: 'Pasen, Hemelvaart, Pinksteren' (1996)
• André de Boer ; Tanja Rozema: 'Spirituele Pasen en Pinksteren : een handreiking voor bezinning en bezieling betreffende de opstanding van de innerlijke mens' (2016 in NL)