Why is Easter, and not Christmas, the "Feast of feasts"?

John Wilson, editor of Books & Culture (a periodical I enjoy reading), has penned a curious and, I think, wrong-headed opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal titled, "Do Christians Overemphasize Christmas?" He laments a certain type of (conveniently constructed) man, a "Ranter", who makes the mistake of thinking Easter is more important than Christmas:

On top of all that, says the Ranter, there is a grievous theological error. In placing so much emphasis on Christmas, Christians fail to grasp the meaning of their own story—in which Easter clearly should take pride of place.

This complaint isn't new, but it's been voiced more frequently of late. And not from the fringes, where members of tiny sects patiently explain that Christmas and Easter are pagan holidays that conscientious Christians must boycott. Well-respected voices are making the argument.

There's Terry Mattingly of getreligion.org, for one, and N.T. Wright, a former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England. And Rodney Clapp, who presides over Brazos Press, a major Christian publisher.

It should be noted that Mattingly (Eastern Orthodox), Wright (Anglican), and Clapp (Evangelical) are joined by the Catholic Church, for the Catechism of Catholic Church states:

"Holy Mother Church believes that she should celebrate the saving work of her divine Spouse in a sacred commemoration on certain days throughout the course of the year. Once each week, on the day which she has called the Lord's Day, she keeps the memory of the Lord's resurrection. She also celebrates it once every year, together with his blessed Passion, at Easter, that most solemn of all feasts. In the course of the year, moreover, she unfolds the whole mystery of Christ .... Thus recalling the mysteries of the redemption, she opens up to the faithful the riches of her Lord's powers and merits, so that these are in some way made present in every age; the faithful lay hold of them and are filled with saving grace." [a quote from Sacrosanctum Concilium] (par. 1163)

Beginning with the Easter Triduum as its source of light, the new age of the Resurrection fills the whole liturgical year with its brilliance. Gradually, on either side of this source, the year is transfigured by the liturgy. It really is a "year of the Lord's favor." 42 The economy of salvation is at work within the framework of time, but since its fulfillment in the Passover of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the culmination of history is anticipated "as a foretaste," and the kingdom of God enters into our time.

Therefore Easter is not simply one feast among others, but the "Feast of feasts," the "Solemnity of solemnities," just as the Eucharist is the "Sacrament of sacraments" (the Great Sacrament). St. Athanasius calls Easter "the Great Sunday"  and the Eastern Churches call Holy Week "the Great Week." The mystery of the Resurrection, in which Christ crushed death, permeates with its powerful energy our old time, until all is subjected to him. (par. 1168-69)

Wilson especially misses the point when he constructs this exceedingly embarrassing straw man:

"The climax of the four Gospels is not Christmas," Mr. Clapp added, "but the events we celebrate as Easter."

Where to start with what's wrong with this analysis? Let's begin with Rabbi Hoffman's contention that Christmas never "really mattered." Such hyperbole reveals the false dichotomy at the heart of this particular Anti-Christmas Rant: the idea that Christmas is more important than Easter, or vice versa, and we must choose between them. That's no more cogent than suggesting that Revelation is more important than Genesis.

I'd be shocked, to put it mildly, if, say, N.T. Wright were to insist that we "must choose between" Christmas and the Incarnation. That is certainly not the point of declaring (as the Church has for centuries) that Easter is "the Feast of feasts" and "the Great Sunday." Rather, as the Catechism notes, it reflects the continuity and relationship within the life of Christ and the liturgical year:

In the liturgical year the various aspects of the one Paschal mystery unfold. This is also the case with the cycle of feasts surrounding the mystery of the incarnation (Annunciation, Christmas, Epiphany). They commemorate the beginning of our salvation and communicate to us the first fruits of the Paschal mystery. (par. 1171)

Wilson is closer to mark, then, when he writes:

This claim we call the Incarnation—and celebrate at Christmas—can't be separated from "the paschal mystery of death and resurrection." The babe in swaddling clothes comes with a mission to fulfill. And as we sing carols for his birth, we see him taken down from the cross, wrapped in "a clean linen cloth," and laid in the tomb of a friend. That's the cloth that is left behind in the empty tomb on Resurrection morning.

Of course, he is still playing the "separation" card, which is unfair to the ancient Catholic and Orthdox traditions, in which such competition doesn't exist; what does exist is a recognition that Easter fulfills the salvific work of Christ, points to the future glory to which we are called, and completes—in a radical and unexpected way—the promise of the Incarnation. Finally, Wilson writes:

Easter is implicit in Christmas, and Christmas is implicit in Easter. When we celebrate the one, we celebrate the other, looking forward to the restoration of all things.

Question: is Easter, in fact, "implicit in Christmas"? Sure, we can say that now, some two thousand years after the historical events. And I suspect that is largely what Wilson is referring to, and I would concur. But did the disciples, spending three years with Jesus, see Easter "implicit" in the divine origins of their Lord? That might seem to be an unfair question, but the Gospels repeatedly show Jesus teaching about his coming sufferings, death, and Resurrection (see Matt. 16:21; Mk. 8:31; Lk. 9:22), a teaching the disciples not only failed to comprehend, but often vehemently rejected (see Matt. 16:21ff). It was only after the Resurrection that the disciples began to fully comprehend the earth-shattering, cosmos-transforming fact of the Incarnation. And it was the Resurrection that took pride of place in the proclamation by the Apostles:

"Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know--this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. (Acts 2:22-24)

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. (1 Cor. 15:13-18)

Or, as the Catechism says, "The Paschal mystery of Christ's cross and Resurrection stands at the centre of the Good News that the apostles, and the Church following them, are to proclaim to the world. God's saving plan was accomplished 'once for all' by the redemptive death of his Son Jesus Christ" (par. 571). Perhaps a helpful way of thinking of this is to that at the heart of salvation history is God's merciful and loving desire to bring man back into communion with Himself, and that the Incarnation (" Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith", CCC 463), and the Resurrection are two essential aspects of that plan. The Incarnation was the beginning; the Resurrection was the fulfillment.

The eschaton will  bring the full revelation and completion of this work of salvation. Again, there is no competition between the two, but there is the recognition that the Resurrection brings to fruition the salvific work that began, in a completely unique way, at Christmas. The Catechism, in speaking of the Ascension, brings all of this full circle:

 The veiled character of the glory of the Risen One during this time is intimated in his mysterious words to Mary Magdalene: "I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." This indicates a difference in manifestation between the glory of the risen Christ and that of the Christ exalted to the Father's right hand, a transition marked by the historical and transcendent event of the Ascension.

This final stage stays closely linked to the first, that is, to his descent from heaven in the Incarnation. Only the one who "came from the Father" can return to the Father: Christ Jesus. "No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man." Left to its own natural powers humanity does not have access to the "Father's house", to God's life and happiness. Only Christ can open to man such access that we, his members, might have confidence that we too shall go where he, our Head and our Source, has preceded us. (CCC, 660-661)

Christmas celebrates and proclaims the wondrous mystery that God became man, taking upon humanity and dwelling among us. Easter celebrates and proclaims the wondrous mystery that the God-man revealed the love of God to man in a wholly unexpected and incredible way: by suffering and dying on the Cross, and then rising from the grave on the third day, destroying forever the power of sin and death: "By death He conquered death!" No Christian should ever pit the two against one another, just as no Christian should take umbrage with the declaration that the climax of the Gospels is the Resurrection. "'O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?' And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Lk. 24:25-7).

Finally, as something of a side note, I would take the two-fold position that the real truth of Christmas is not emphasized enough (both in the dominant culture—duh!—and, often, in churches), and that Christmas is indeed overemphasized, if by "Christmas" we mean a highly commercialized, sacchrine, banal "celebration" of warm fuzzies and vague sentiments. The exhortations to get ready for Christmas seem to begin earlier and earlier each year; I won't be surprised when we find stores putting up plastic Christmas trees on July 5th! Easter, on the other hand, is a blip on the social and cultural screen. Worse, it is often just a blip on the screen for many Christians, a great number of whom don't even bother with Holy Week and Good Friday and so forth. So, yes, there is a real sense in which Christmas (or "the holidays") is overemphasized, but it is because the wrong things are often emphasized. And that, dear reader, is this year's Christmas rant!

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Comments

[David A.]

And a very nice rant it is too! Seriously, I enjoyed reading your thought-provoking post.

Merry Christmas, Carl!

[Ted K]

Actually, the Incarnation is not celebrated at Christmas, but at the Annunciation, 9 months earlier. What we celebrate at Christmas, particularly in the East, is an epiphany, the showing of the Lord made flesh to the world. In very ancient times, the Incarnation was celeberated on the same day as the death of our Lord (Good Friday), which in our Western calendar is 25 March. We even have vestiges of this in Gregorian chant such as in the kalenda for the Nativity, which changes to the tone of the Passion at the end. The celebration of the Incarnation should be more important than Christmas, but in the West at least, this is not so. I think the western Church should redress this historical anomaly, as it has some important consequences on its view of abortion for today.

[Carl E. Olson]

What we celebrate at Christmas, particularly in the East, is an epiphany, the showing of the Lord made flesh to the world.

And the term for God "make flesh" is "the Incarnation". I understand your point to a certain degree and recognize, as someone who attends a Byzantine Catholic parish, the distinction/emphasis you are making. But the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord is very much about the Incarnation: "In the liturgical year the various aspects of the one Paschal mystery unfold. This is also the case with the cycle of feasts surrounding the mystery of the incarnation (Annunciation, Christmas, Epiphany)" (CCC 1171).

[Carl E. Olson]

Thanks, David! Merry Christmas!