Why We Celebrate Easter

Why do we celebrate Easter? The quick answer does not do justice to the complex significance of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Let’s examine important elements of this religious holiday.

> When did sacrifice become necessary? From the beginning, God gave man the freedom of choice. However, if Satan had never aspired to be higher than God, he would not have tempted Eve, and she and Adam would have innocently chosen to obey God and lived happily ever after in the Garden of Eden. Being naïve, however, Adam and Eve did not understand the consequences of disobedience until they ate of the Tree of Knowledge; once they did, they understood right from wrong and felt shame, leading them to cover themselves with leaves, inadequately, and hide from God. Of course, we can’t hide from God, He is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent. To provide adequate clothing, God sacrificed animals and made garments for them. And thus began the need for the covering of sin. While we know sacrifice existed from this beginning, clear instructions are not documented in the Bible until Moses took the Israelites out of Egypt. Leviticus 17:11 says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.” Additionally, once the very specific rules were established, only the tribe of Levi was allowed to submit sacrifices to the Lord on behalf of all the tribes. Further, the Israelites were God’s chosen people; all other nations subject to His judgment had an unclear path to salvation. Not so once Christ came, as he was the final sacrificial Lamb. The most beloved of all scriptures, John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” and Galatians 3:28 further clarifies, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

> Understanding the need for Christ’s sacrifice, what is the origin of the word ‘Easter?’ One theory is it is a derivative from an obscure pagan Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring named Eostre. This assumption is based on writings of an English monk born in the late 7th century, the Venerable Bede, where he said the early Christians were celebrating the resurrection of Christ in Eosturmonath, the Old English word for ‘Month of Eostre,’ which is April. But that does not mean that Easter is based on a pagan ritual; rather, it was common for the early Christians to replace pagan customs with pertinent religious ones. Reverence of Eostre has been revived by polytheistic neopaganism, filling out her mythological story with characteristics of other spring goddesses and elements of Easter celebrations. Another theory is that the word ‘Easter’ comes from an older German word Ost for ‘east,’ which came from an older Latin word for ‘dawn.’ The inference being Spring dawns anew from the east.

> Why is Easter sometimes in March and sometimes in April? Some pagan and religious customs alike are related to the rotation of the earth rather than to a specific day on the calendar. Pagan religions celebrate the spring equinox for the renewal of life, giving thanks to their many gods of nature. Depending on the exact alignment of the sun and the earth, the spring equinox occurs on March 19th, 20th or 21st. In the Bible, God gave very specific instructions for Jewish feasts and celebrations, and also some related to seasons. The Passover is probably the most important Jewish Holiday. It celebrates the Jews escaping their bondage in Egypt, the name being based on the 10th plague God put upon Pharaoh for not letting His people go, the death of all firstborn. God told the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb for each household, placing its blood upon the doorpost so death would pass over their homes, whereas it would take the firstborn in the Egyptian homes not so marked. In Exodus, the people are instructed to annually celebrate the Passover for 7 days, starting the 15th day of Nisan (using the Hebrew calendar), which coincides with the first full moon after the Spring equinox. The Passover is important to Easter because Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Passover when he was arrested and crucified; with the narratives in the New Testament describing the events, we know the crucifixion was on Friday, and the Resurrection was on the following Sunday. Therefore, Easter is on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring equinox. Jesus was the ultimate Passover Lamb; accepting and believing His sacrifice covers an individual’s soul with His blood, so God’s judgment will pass over the person with sins forgiven. Therefore, His resurrection conquered death for all time.

> Where did the bunnies and eggs come from? While there is anecdotal reference in the Eostre myth regarding hares and eggs, there is disagreement if there is sufficient ancient evidence for it or if the elements were orally added as time went on. More than one mythology story used both motifs to represent rebirth and fertility associated with spring. Hares and rabbits began appearing in Christian art during the Middle Ages, although the reason for their inclusion is still obscure. Possibly because of the inference of fertility and virginity, as it was a common belief at the time that hares were hermaphrodites and, therefore, representative of the Virgin Mary. As for eggs, they were not eaten during Lent, when many Christians observe Jesus’ 40 days in the desert by fasting meat and its byproducts. The early church would boil the eggs rather than let them go to waste. They may be colored red to represent the blood of Christ. The first reference to the hare, or bunny, being associated with colored eggs did not appear until the end of the medieval age in German Protestant folklore. Children were told if they were well-behaved, a bunny would leave them colored eggs. As the story evolved, children made baskets for the bunny to leave the eggs in, bringing the well-known symbols of today together in one story.

> How important is it to believe the Easter story? Now, none of this would be very relevant if the Easter story did not really happen. A non-believer may think religion is just to explain the unknown or to provide a social structure. For a believer, evidence of God (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) is everywhere. Two examples:

1) Think of the calendar. In the ancient world, dates were based on important events and/or careful chronologies of rulers. The Roman calendar under Julius Caesar was organized somewhat differently for counting days of the year; then, in 523–525 AD, a papal chancellor ordered a monk named Dionysius Exiguus to calculate the date of Easter and instead of using the current emperor’s reign as the basis for a year, to use the birth of Christ. This method of counting years became the basis for our modern calendar. Therefore, Jesus is the linchpin for expressing the passage of time. For hundreds and hundreds of years, the abbreviations BC, Before Christ, and AD, Anno Domini, which means ‘the year of our Lord,’ have been used to identify the before and after Christ’s birth. Unfamiliar, the abbreviations CE, Common Era, and BCE, Before Common Era, have been showing up recently in writings instead? Upon research, changing the semantics is apparently to remove the religious implications in deference to non-Christians… however, changing semantics does not change the fact that Jesus’ life is the basis for how the world counts the years. Additionally, people have erroneously guessed CE means Christian Era and BCE is Before Christian Era, so trying to disassociate from the Lord does not make it so.

2) Go back further than the calendar, and think about the beginning of time. Easy for believers — Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” Intelligent Design. For non-believers — the Big Bang. According to brilliant scientists such as Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, using the theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics, was an initial singularity of infinite density containing all mass and spacetime of the Universe in a very limited point that exploded and has been advancing out across space for billions of years. The explanation gets more confusing from there unless you are a brilliant scientist. It was interesting to note that some physicists are not sure singularities exist, or rather that current knowledge is insufficient to explain infinite density before time and space existed.

Which one is harder to believe? God, the Intelligent Designer, created everything, or Infinite Density chaotically blew it into being from nothing. There is no doubt that man’s knowledge has exploded in the past hundred or so years, that the understanding of the sciences, of physics, is impressive, and that much is provable through hard work and experimentation. It comes down to what Hebrews 11:3 says “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” It takes faith to believe and accept there is a God, our Creator, the Intelligent Designer, who made a way for salvation from sin through His Son Jesus Christ, and teaches us how to live through His Holy Spirit. For believers, when we die, and it turns out there is no God, we have lost nothing, and we will never know He wasn’t waiting on the other side. For non-believers, when they die, and it turns out there is an Almighty God, they have lost everything for infinity, perhaps tragically, eerily similar to the initial singularity posited by the Big Bang theory…. I’d rather all people accept and believe in our Creator.