Should Christians Celebrate Easter?
1 Corinthians 11:23-26NKJV,
23For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.
The Lord is telling us to honor his death and resurrection by partaking in passover and in communion. These are the only instructions Christ leaves his church, the only way he tells us to honor who he was. The Lord was very clear with us honoring his final day on earth.
Some people believe the word easter appears in the bible. That is correct, however, easter is a miss-translation. Easter can be found in Acts 12:4 However it is a miss-translation. The Greek word that would have been used here is the word Pascha when translated means Passover. Not Easter.
When is Passover?
Passover begins on the 14th day of the Month called Nisan. Which is the first year of the biblical jewish year. The Festival of Unleavened Bread is the same holiday as passover. It is celebrated in the northern spring season and it arrives at nightfall.
What is Passover, and what does it mean?
Passover commemorates the Exodus- the liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. It also marks the "birth" of the Jewish nation, who were the Children of Israel. Instead of following Pharaoh, they followed God.
Passover (Pesakh) meaning skipping or passing over) derives from the night when the Angel of Death saw the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts of the houses of Israel and "skipped over" them and did not kill their first borns. The meal of the Passover Seder commemorates this even. The Feast of Unleavened bread refers to the weeklong period when leaven was removed and unleavened bread or matsa("flatbread") is eaten.
Then What Is Easter?
Easter is a pagan holiday that revolves around the spring equinox, better known as spring. The origins of Easter dates back before the time of Jesus, and later on through time Easter started to adapt some characteristics of Jesus resurrection, and freeing of the captives.
The word Easter originated from the babylonian pagan fertility goddess Ishtar (Ashter), Eostre, Astarte, Anunit, Atarsamain, Esther Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron and Ausos.
Like I said, Ishtar is the goddess of fertility, love and war she was "the driving personification of the planet venus" also known as "the Queen of Heaven". It was Ishtar that the city of Nineveh worshiped. If you recall Nineveh was the place Jonah was sent to by God to turn from their wicked ways.
Like all the church's "movable feasts," Easter shows 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.
Wiccans and other Neopagans continue to celebrate the spring equinox as one of their 8 yearly Sabbats (holy days of celebration). Wiccans usually celebrate Sabbat out doors, incorporating bonfires, jumping over the dying embers is believed to assure fertility of people and crops. The rituals at Spring exquinox is primarily related to the fertility of the crops and to the balance of the day and night times.
Easter was celebrated hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus Christ. It wasn't until at least 300 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the establishment of his church that the celebration of his resurrection began to be intermingled with the pagan practices of Easter.
Exodus 23:13 New International Version
13 "Be careful to do everything I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips."
Easter is the pagan time to celebrate the renewal of life, to dance and honor nature and the life that it gives.
What about the cute bunnies?
Eggs, like rabbits and hares, are fertility symbols of extreme antiquity; since birds lay eggs and rabbits and hares give birth (to large litters) in the early spring, these became symbols of the rising fertility of the earth. The mating behavior of hares often looks like a wild dance, usually males fight over the females in early march. Making the early observers believe the early advent of spring made the hares "mad". Rabbits and Hares are both lagomorphs; they are prolific breeders. Females can conceive a second litter while still pregnant with the first litter. Known as superfetation. coining the term "to breed like bunnies" or "multiply like rabbits"
Why can bunnies lay eggs?
according to a popular piece of folklore, Eostre once saved a bird whose wings had frozen during the winter by turning it into a rabbit. Because the rabbit had once been a bird, it could still lay eggs, and that rabbit became the modern Easter Bunny
why do we color eggs?
The precise origin of the custom of coloring eggs is not known, although it too is ancient; Greeks to this day typically dye their Easter eggs red, the color of blood, in recognition of the renewal of life in springtime (and, later, the blood of the sacrificed Christ). Some also use the color green, in honor of the new foliage emerging after the long "dead" time of winter
Why do we get gifts on easter?
According to the legend of Osterhas, only good children received gifts of colored eggs in the nests that they made in their caps and bonnets before Easter. This legend was brought over by the German immigrants in the 18th century.
Should you observe Easter?
Jeremiah 10:2 states The Message
1-5 Listen to the Message that God is sending your way, House of Israel. Listen most carefully:
"Don't take the godless nations as your models.
Don't be impressed by their glamour and glitz,
no matter how much they're impressed.
The religion of these peoples
is nothing but smoke.
An idol is nothing but a tree chopped down,
then shaped by a woodsman's ax.
They trim it with tinsel and balls,
use hammer and nails to keep it upright.
It's like a scarecrow in a cabbage patch—can't talk!
Dead wood that has to be carried—can't walk!
Don't be impressed by such stuff.
It's useless for either good or evil."
His Word gives us explicit instructions regarding worshipping Him with practices adopted from pagan idolatry: "Do not inquire after their gods, saying, 'How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.' You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way; for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods . . . Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it" (Deuteronomy 12:30-32).
Acts 17: 30
God overlooks it as long as you don't know any better—but that time is past. The unknown is now known, and he's calling for a radical life-change. He has set a day when the entire human race will be judged and everything set right. And he has already appointed the judge, confirming him before everyone by raising him from the dead.
John 12:26
26 If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.
John 4:24 NKJV
God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth
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Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Bunny
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eostre
http://www.bright.net/~1wayonly/easter.html
http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn69/easter.htm
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