Table Talk - Symbols of God

Dear Lower School Family and Friends,

“Why does Easter—the celebration of God’s peace over violence, hope over despair, and life over death —take place at the start of spring and not in the dead of winter?”

I asked this question last week in chapel and have been repeating it to my classes over the past few days.

Taking place just after the vernal equinox, Easter, like Passover, is a holy day that celebrates and symbolizes a time of transition from conditions of death to the promise of the new life. The dead of winter becomes the promise of spring. Barren trees begin to bloom. Muted shades of brownish grey become vibrant and verdant colors. This is why Easter takes place in the spring and has come to be associated with new life—be it fresh flowers, bunnies and chicks, or floral dresses and pastel shirts.

In the early Christian tradition, it was a common practice to search for God’s presence in the surrounding environment and culture. This is how lambs, butterflies, peacocks, phoenixes, pelicans, and dolphins came to be symbols for Jesus as the Easter stories recall him (these symbols are explained below).

All journeys of faith are based on the ongoing search for God’s presence in our midst. It’s important to understand the symbols and practices that people in the past have used to connect to God. But it’s even more important to ask where we can encounter God in the symbols and practices of today. Among the most significant points of Jesus’ message was that we readily encounter God in our interactions of love, compassion, and celebration.

Last month, in a loving act of compassion and celebration, our students took part in the second annual Lent Madness Fundraiser and raised over $6,800 to aid the underprivileged children who will attend HIES Horizons summer enrichment program. News about this generosity spread and I had an unexpected exchange with someone from New York who contacted me commending our Lower Schoolers’ actions and attitude as being a clear example of God’s presence in the world. This person was not the only one to notice that something significant and holy took place here at HIES. The website of the local NBC station ran this article last week, and so did a few other online publications.

  

Each week in chapel, we go out of our way to open ourselves up the Spirit of God, asking it move in and through us so that we may reveal God’s love to one another and to the world. Having the honor of spending so much time with the Lower Schoolers, I can humbly testify to witnessing God’s presence at work in our student body and faculty. I firmly believe the HIES Lower School is steadily becoming a symbol of God here in Georgia and even beyond.

I pray you continue to look for positive symbols of God in the people and world around you; and I’d love for you to share your vision with your children, close friends, and me, too!

With love and prayers,

Chaplain Timothy

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Explanation of Easter Symbols             

The Passover lamb of the Jewish tradition became one of the most common symbols for Jesus. The butterfly is a symbol of the Resurrection, as a caterpillar disappears into a tomb-like cocoon only to emerge as a butterfly. In Roman mythology, the peacock was Juno's sacred bird and symbolized immortality. Early Christians adopted the peacock as a symbol of eternal life and the Resurrection of Christ. According to ancient myth, the phoenix is a large, beautiful bird that bursts into flame at the moment it would die. Out of the ashes comes a new live bird, restored to its youth, to begin another life cycle. The phoenix is often used as an image of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and the triumph of eternal life over death. The image depicting a pelican pecking its own breast so its starving young can feed on its blood—a reference to Jesus’ likening wine to his blood during the last supper—comes from the line in Psalm 102 “I am like a pelican in the wilderness.” In classical mythology, the dolphin was thought to carry souls to the islands of the dead and return back to the shores of the living. Early Christians adopted the dolphin as a symbol of Jesus’ resurrection.

A Further Note on the Passover-Easter Connection

Like the overlapping Jewish holy day of Passover, Easter’s placement in the calendar is partly symbolic of the season. Passover—which Jesus was celebrating the week of his last supper, arrest, and murder by Roman authorities—is the annual celebration of the Exodus story where death passes over the Hebrews because they listen to God’s call for justice and are led by Moses out from the deadening bondage of slavery towards the new life of the Promise Land. Easter echoes this story: death passes over humanity because, by heeding God’s call for forgiveness over retributive vengeance, Jesus defeats death and fulfills the promise of the resurrection.