'Resurrection Sunday' takes hold among some

Holy Week starts today with Palm Sunday, but when it culminates next Sunday, don't expect the Rev. Charles Beamon to exclaim, "Happy Easter!"

"I prefer to call it 'Resurrection Sunday,'" Beamon, senior pastor of Fourth Baptist Church in Portsmouth, said of Easter, which falls on March 23 this year.

In Christianity, there is no more important day than Easter, which marks Jesus' resurrection into new, eternal life.

Centuries of Christian tradition hinge upon Easter, including the penitential 40 days of Lent and the Good Friday focus on Jesus' crucifixion.

Yet Beamon is among some clergy and Christians who are convinced the very word "Easter" has lost its power to evoke the holy.

They blame American consumerism and the market square, where Easter is merchandised as an excuse for indulging the self with chocolate bunnies or shopping sprees.

It's a mind set Beaman, 56, said he shared as a younger man. "Easter, it was more of a materialistic thing: You got a new suit and shoes, those type of things," he said.

Now, Beamon pointedly avoids speaking of Easter. Instead, he cites "Resurrection Sunday" as the term that best conveys the miracle Christians believe in.

"If you take away the resurrection, you really don't have anything to celebrate," he said.

At Herald of His Coming Church of God in Christ in Norfolk, similar reasons led the Rev. Ronald Sewell Sr. to use "Resurrection Sunday" instead of "Easter" in the church bulletin.

"Easter has been so commercialized, it's taken away the theme and purpose for the day we celebrate, which is the resurrection of Christ," Sewell said.

Though he hasn't sought a substitute term for Christmas, Sewell said mass merchandising poses a similar threat to the holiday that celebrates Jesus' birth.

In some Christian circles, the term "Easter" is repudiated because it harkens to a long-ago pagan goddess with a similar name. There are critics who argue that Easter is bogus because they say the term isn't found in the Bible.

But much of the Christian community never thinks about what's in the name.

"I rarely hear people in mainline denominations talk about it in terms of 'Resurrection Sunday,' " said the Rev. Craig Wansink, a Presbyterian minister who is a religious studies professor at Virginia Wesleyan College, a Methodist school.

At St. Stephen Martyr Catholic Church in Chesapeake, the Rev. Michael McCarron called the debate silly.

"Our Lord didn't decide to name the day he rose - he had better things to say about his resurrection than to name it," McCarron said of Jesus.

Even the pastors who believe names matter said they're not about to finger-wag their preference upon folks who still talk of Easter.

Sewell said anyone who visits his church looking for Easter services is welcome.

"I'm a believer that you can't clean a fish until you catch him," he said, laughing. "The wrong bait would be to be dogmatic and condemn the word 'Easter.' "

Steven G. Vegh, (757) 446-2417, steven.vegh@pilotonline.com