8 Quick Facts About Easter
8 Quick Facts About
Easter:
1. The
word English word “easter” was adapted from the Anglo-Saxon name for the pagan
goddess Eastre or Estera. Devotees made
sacrifice to this goddess during the month of April, hence the name was
transferred to the Passover celebration occurring around the same time. See also Alexander Hislop's definitive work, The Two Babylons, for further study on the pagan origins of easter.
© Photographer: Shawna Caldwell | Agency: Dreamstime.com
2. The
word “easter” does not actually occur in Scripture. The translators of the King James Version of
the Bible supplied the word in the place of the Greek word for Passover, pascha, at Acts 12:4. Modern English translations such as the New
King James Version rightly translate this word “Passover.”
3. Easter
was not celebrated by the early Christians anywhere in the New Testament.
4. Jesus
directed His followers to commemorate His death, burial and resurrection in the
ordinances of the Lord’s Supper and baptism by immersion. 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Romans 6:3-5.
5. Jewish
Christians continued to celebrate the Jewish feast of Passover in commemoration
of Christ’s death on the cross, and this evolved into an annual celebratory
feast that evolved into the Easter celebration that most of Christendom
recognizes.
6. Disputes
arose later as to whether Easter should be celebrated on the Passover, without
regard to the day of the week, or on Sunday, the day that Christ arose. Those in favor of Sunday also disagreed as to
which Sunday it should fall on. The church
bishops attempted to settle the dispute by stating that it should be celebrated
on Sunday, at the Council of Nicea in 325 A. D.
But they never specified which Sunday it should be celebrated on. Eventually, the Western church adopted the rule
of celebrating Easter on the "Sunday following the
14th day of the calendar moon which comes on, or after, the vernal equinox
which was fixed for March 21.”[i] This explains why the date for Easter varies
from year-to-year, because the vernal equinox is an astronomical phenomenon
that varies in its occurrence annually.
7. Easter
bunnies and colored eggs have nothing to do with Christ’s death and
resurrection. These associations came
from pagan fertility customs which migrated from their pagan origins into the Christian
Easter. As W. E. Vine points out, this
was done to make Christianity more appealing to the pagan masses that the
church sought to convert.[ii]
8. While
the festival of Easter has no basis whatsoever in any teaching of Christ or His
apostles, neither on any biblical precept, we should judge no one as ‘pagan’ for
observing it. It does serve an
evangelistic and good purpose of calling the world’s attention for a short
season to the most important and glorious event of human history and the
Christian faith: the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Neither
should any Christian who observes Easter judge that Christian as less than
charitable who abstains from observing a festival that lacks biblical precept or
example to so do. However, it is a sound
principle of Christianity to stick with a plain “Thus saith the Lord” for
everything that we observe and do. When
we as Christians start declaring days and observances as holy, which God has
not commanded, we are headed down the same slippery slope as the scribes and
Pharisees in Jesus’ time. Jesus said of
them: “But in vain they do worship Me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Matthew 15:9.
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