It’s Easter again. Colored eggs. Baskets of grass. Cute bunnies. New clothes. Lilies. But what does all of this have to do with the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead?
Actually nothing, except there is a faint connection with the idea of new life and His coming forth from the grave. However the problem is that we see too much that is raw paganism at this time of year. A second problem is that the world sees the bunnies but misses the doctrinal truth that Christ’s resurrection proves that God is through with our sins. They were nailed to the cross and purged by the sacrifice of Jesus.
The word Easter, and what is done during this period, is pure pagan. It is actually the springtime sacrificial festival named for the Saxon Goddess Eostre, or Ostara, a European form of Astarte. Astarte was the Lady of Byblos, the Great Goddess in the Middle East. She was Egypt’s Hathor and Cyprus’ Aphrodite. She was worshiped by Indo-European cultures, and was typified by India’s Mother Kalie as the symbol of Nature. The waters of the Ganges flows down into an unknown sea near Eostre’s far away dwelling place.
Astarte was called "the true sovereign of the world." In other words, Easter has both a Babylonian and a Hindu connection!
The Easter bunny is older than Christianity itself. It was the Moon hare sacred to the goddess in both Easter and western nations. Rabbits also typify to the pagan world new life because they multiply so quickly.
Easter showed its pagan origin in a dating system based on the old lunar calendar. It is fixed as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, formerly the "pregnant" phase of Eostre passing into the fertile season.
The Church festival wasn’t called Easter until the goddess’ name was given to it in the late Middle Ages. The Persians began their solar New Year at the spring equinox, and up to the middle of the 18th century they followed the old custom of presenting each other with colored eggs. Eggs were always a symbol of rebirth; usually the color was red, symbolizing new life.
In Bohemia villages, girls acting as priestesses scarified to the Lord of Death and threw him into the water, singing, "Death swims in the water, spring comes to visit us, with eggs that are red, we carried Death out of the village, we are carrying Summer into the village."
In Russia the people laid red Easter eggs on graves to serve as resurrection charms. Besides the symbolism of new life in rabbits, the Easter baskets represent the womb of life, the green grass placed inside pictures the Goddess causing the plants to grow.
In some pagan cultures the Great Goddess was the "createss" whose World Egg contained the universe in embryo. The World Egg was identified with the moon. Heaven and earth were made of the two halves of the eggshell. The first deity to emerge from it was the bisexual Eros the Desired One.
The egg was a common Oriental image of creation. A curious 16th century Easter tradition was known as "creeping to the cross with eggs and apples". The eggs symbolized birth and the apples death. Carpets were laid down in the churches so that royalty could crawl in comfort.
Though most Christians today argue that all the Easter trappings, baskets, eggs, bunnies, are harmless, this is certainly not true. There is no way one could connect for small children the Easter "stuff" with the resurrection of Christ.
For the culture in general the meaning of Easter Sunday is lost. But even for children in Christian families the emphasis is misplaced and clouded over by the egg hunts, baskets and candy. Somewhere, Christians must say enough is enough!
Somewhere, believers in the Lord must refuse to pander and prostitute themselves to the pagan beliefs of the past.
Some have well suggested that the name Easter Sunday should be changed to Resurrection Sunday. Pastors should speak out against the traditional "Easter" traditions. But they should focus on the glory of the resurrection of Christ. Why did the Lord come out of the grave?
What is the importance of the resurrection? It demonstrated He was the Holy One of God. It exhibited God’s divine power but also Christ’s power over death.
It also makes Christ now our eternal high priest. Paul writes that Christ "was delivered up because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification" (Rom. 4:25), thus it proves that our salvation is an accomplished fact.
Finally the gospel itself cannot be defined without including the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
"He was buried and raised on the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:1-6). With His resurrection He set us, the captives, free!
