Is Easter a Christian Holiday, or is it Pagan?
The Answer is that it is pagan. Easter has roots in paganism. Pagans were celebrating this spring festival about 500 years before the Lord Jesus Christ came to earth to die for our sins, and He has NOTHING to do with this pagan spring festival.
The word "Easter" is likely derived from Eostre, the Saxon mother goddess, whose name in turn was adapted from Eastre, an ancient word for spring. The Norse equivalent of Eostre was the goddess Ostara, whose symbols were an egg and a hare, both denoting fertility. Festivals honoring these goddesses were celebrated on or around the vernal equinox, and even today, when Easter has supposedly been Christianized, the date of the holiday falls according to rather pagan reckonings, i.e. on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox.
Rabbits, of course, are a potent symbol of fertility due to their prodigious output of young. Eggs, likewise, have always been considered representative of new life, fertility, and reincarnation. Painted eggs, thought to imitate the bright sunlight and gaily colored flowers of spring, have been used in rituals since the days of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians. Lilies were also seen as fertility symbols because of their perceived resemblance to male genitalia. Even hot cross buns, associated with Lent, derive from the ancient Greeks and Romans, who baked “magic” wheat cakes with crosses scored in the top; two of these cakes were discovered in the ruins of Herculaneum, which was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE.
As far as Good Friday goes, it is a sham, anybody who says or believes that Jesus died on a Friday and rose on a Sunday, either don't know the bible, or they are calling Jesus a liar, because Jesus said, "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." {Matthew 12:40} After researching, I am convinced that Jesus died on the cross on a Wednesday evening, and rose on Saturday night {3 days and 3 nights} and his tomb was discovered empty on Sunday morning. The weekly Sabbath was from Friday at 6:30 pm until Saturday at 6:30 pm, since the sabbath is a day of rest, Jesus most likely did not get up out of the tomb until somtime after 6:30 on Sat. night, and his tomb was found empty sometime later.
Some christians think it is ok to borrow pagan customs to celebrate the birth and death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, I don't think we should, God said, "Learn not the way of the heathen....." {Jeremiah 10:2} Why should christians celebrate this festival the way unsaved Christ rejecters do? I mean after all, let the heathens celebrate this pagan spring festival with their bunnys and eggs, because eggs and bunnys and the word "Easter" have nothing to do with Jesus. I never say "Happy Easter" to people, I always say, "Happy Resurrection Day" in respect to the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
God Bless,
Christopher
