Different views ofaster
Story by David Teska
Not all faiths believe what the Bible says about Jesus. Even Christians who celebrate his Resurrection do so in differing ways.
he death and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the central event of the year for many Christians. Today is Good Friday, a day marking the Crucifixion of Jesus. Sunday is Easter, a day commemorating the rise of Jesus from the dead. Christians believe he rose in forgiveness of their sins, and Easter is a time Christians reflect on the importance of that sacrifice.
KU students represent diverse races, religions and beliefs. Students will interpret the importance and symbolism of Easter according to the dictates of their own beliefs.
About 1.9 billion people worldwide consider themselves Christians, making Christianity the world's largest religion. But it is not monolithic. Roman Catholics, Baptists, Methodists and other sects refer to themselves as Christian but they differ in their interpretations of biblical scripture and in their practices.
Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Luke 24:46-47
Judaism
ate on a chily morning, Emily Greenbaum sat at her dining room table in the Hilley House, 940 Mississippi St., a residence for Jewish students who want to live in a Jewish setting. She won't be doing anything special this Sunday, she said.
I'll be doing what I do every Sunday and be doing homework," said the Plymouth, Minn., senior, chuckling.
On Easter, Jews will be in the fifth day of Passover, a holiday that commemorates the Jewish exodus from slavery in Egypt.
"We celebrate Passover for entirely different reasons," she said. "He really plays very little in Judaism."
Because Jews don't consider Jesus the Messiah, they don't commemorate his death in any way, Greenbaum said.
Although Jews don't celebrate Easter, Jesus was a jew, and what Christians call the Last Supper was a Seder. Seders are special meals Jews eat during Passover. During Passover, Jews will eat two Seder meals and cannot eat bread with yeast or food that contains rice, noodles, flower or corn syrup. Passover started Wednesday and runs through Thursday. Depending on the sect of Judaism, Passover is either celebrated for seven or eight days and nights, Greenbaum said.
"More Reform Jews tend to celebrate it for seven days where conservative and Orthodox tend to celebrate it for eight," she said.
Typically, American Jews celebrate Passover for eight days because they live outside Israel. In Roman times Jews were expelled from their homeland of Palestine and dispersed across the world.
To make all Jews feel welcome, Greenbaum said, the six residents of Hillel House will try to celebrate Passover as strictly as possible so everyone will feel comfortable.
Detail: Moses and the Tables of Law, ca. 1470, is a fresco by Cosimo Rosselli.
The Crucifixion, ca. 1440, is a collective work by several Dominican Friars and represents a classical representation of Jesus' death on the cross.
Catholicism
although Christians believe Jesus was the Son of God and that he died for their sins, not all Christians celebrate the event the same way. Roman Catholics celebrate Easter once each year after forty days of Lent, a period for penance.
"Easter is the fundamental basis of our faith," said the Rev. Charles Polifka, pastor at St. John the Evangelist, 1229 Vermont St.
"Without Easter and without his Resurrection, our faith wouldn't be," he said.
Rev. Vince Krische, pastor at the St. Lawrence Catholic Center, 1631 Crescent Road, said Easter was the high point of the year for Catholics.
He said Catholics believed that through the death and Resurrection of Jesus they would achieve eternal life.
Easter began for Catholics on Feb. 21, Ash Wednesday. On that day, ashes of burned palm fronds are put on the foreheads of Catholics as a reminder of the death of Jesus. Krische said that for Catholics, Easter was not just a remembrance of a historical event.
"It's our belief that there's life after death." he said.
"We don't just think of what happened to Jesus 2,000 years ago but what happened to humanity," he said.
Mitchel Zimmerman, Hoxie senior and coordinator of outreach ministry at the center, said he was looking forward to Mass on Easter Sunday.
"It's a very joyful Mass," he said. "On Easter the liturgy is much more joyful."
Because Catholicism is based on the death and Resurrection of Jesus, Zimmerman said, Easter is the holiest day for Catholics, even more than Christmas.
"This is the heart and soul of Catholicism," he said.
Eastern Orthodox
yne Tumlinson, coordinator of international studies for the Center of Russian and East European Studies, said she couldn't fully understand the history and culture of Russia without having learned about the Eastern Orthodox church.
Russian spirituality is key to understanding Russian history." she said.
Tumlinson said she was raised as a Protestant but began to see aspects of her faith she didn't agree with, such as the emphasis on the sermon. This led to a re-evaluation of her own faith and her conversion to Orthodoxy in 1987, she said.
Unlike the Roman Catholic Easter celebration, Orthodox Christians adhere to a different calendar. For them, Palm Sunday, the day marking Jesus' entry into Jerusalem before he died, is on April 7. Catholics celebrated Palm Sunday on March 31. Tumilinson said her church, the Orthodox Church of America, was very ritualistic and that its holidays were prescribed when the church began forming right after the death of Jesus.
"When the church first started setting down guidelines on how they would operate, a canon was set down that Easter would follow Passover," she said.
That emphasis on a traditional, ritualistic version of Christianity attracted Jason Hatfield, Salina senior, and his family to Othodoy in 1993.
"It was sort of a chance occurrence," he said. "We were very traditional Episcopalians."
Hattfield said that in 1991 his mother, an artist, became interested in Russian icons, which are traditional Russian religious artworks. After viewing some icons in Wichita, the family met with an Orthodox priest and they all decided to be christened, a ceremony by which Orthodox Christians confirm their belief.
Since then, Hatfield said, he has learned a lot about the depth of his own faith before and after his conversion, especially when he considers his prayer life.
"I felt like I prayed a lot," he said. "It's on an entirely different level in the Orthodox church."
Detail: Christ's Desposition from the Cross, is an example of Medieval Eastern Orthodox art.
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