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Easter properly is a celebration of life. The holiday takes place in Spring, the season of budding leaves and flowers, of hatching eggs, and of newborn deer and other animals. Some think “Easter” derives from the name of a Germanic fertility goddess.
But some Christians celebrate death instead. In the Philippines, thousands have gathered to watch people get nailed to crosses and whip themselves bloody. The Associated Press reports that one man “screamed in pain as men dressed as Roman soldiers hammered stainless steel nails into his palms and feet. A wireless microphone carried his voice to loudspeakers for everyone watching to hear.”
The fact that these Christians cling to the faith-based fantasy that Jesus’s death and their own suffering somehow will grant them an eternal afterlife does not change the fact that their “celebration” is the worship of physical pain and death here on earth.
Meanwhile, as some Filipinos intentionally damaged their bodies, inflicted horrific pain on themselves, and flirted with their own death, one Filipino, Joshua Lipana, laid in a hospital room, fighting for his life.
As Craig Biddle recently reported, Joshua—an assistant editor for The Objective Standard and the author of numerous articles and blog posts—has returned to the hospital to obtain treatment for his relapsed lymphoma. Joshua faces another series of brutally painful chemotherapy treatments—treatments he undergoes in order to beat the cancer and live.
Joshua, not those nailing themselves to crosses, is the proper representative of Easter, the holiday of life. May those of us who love our lives denounce death cults in all their variations, celebrate our lives this Easter, and aid Joshua toward a speedy recovery.
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Image: Wikimedia Commons
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