Origins of Easter

Easter Sunday. According to the Christian religion, today is one of the most holiest of days, possibly rivaled only by Christmas. It's a day where children excitedly get up in the morning to find baskets full of Easter eggs and candy. Families dress up in their finest clothes, perhaps attend sunrise services. It's a day where even the least faithful get their asses up to attend church, because this is the day, of all days to celebrate the rising of their Lord and Savior, the Messiah Himself, Jesus Christ.

Easter is the final day of a 47 day (48 on leap years, Sundays aren't counted during the 40 days of Lent) long celebration, beginning on Ash Wednesday. On Ash Wednesday, believers mark their forheads with ashes from the burnt palms from the previous Palm Sunday, in a symbol of their repentance and mourning for their sins. Originally Lent was a time where new Christians were taught about the Christian faith before being baptized on Easter monrning. These days, the following 40 days (not counting Sundays) represent a time of sacrifice, remembering the 40 days that Jesus suffered in the wilderness without food or water. Believers use this time to fast, although not literally in the sense of not eating, but they give up something that is important to them, such as chocolate, or coffee. Easter week begins on Palm Sunday, a day commemorating Jesus's entrance into Jerusalem, when the jews were said to celebrate his entrance by laying palm fronds on the ground as he rode in on his ass. Lent officially ends on Maundy Thursday (marking the day of the Last Supper and the Jewish Passover), the day before Good Friday, which marks the death of Jesus Christ. All of this culminates on Easter Sunday, when Jesus is said to have risen from the dead and rolled away the stone of his tomb to appear before Mary of Magdelene.

With such rich tradition it's no wonder that Christians hold this holiday in high regard, and that many get upset about the commercialization of the holiday, complaining that the holiday is being secularized, and virtually stolen from them. Tales of Easter rabbits and colored eggs have nothing to do with the Christian holiday and many consider them to be the secular equivalent of Santa Claus.

But what would they say if they knew that the Christian Church, was the true original theif of the holiday? The very name Easter is a derivative of the name of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. The same goddess was known also as Ostern or Astarte by the Phoenicians, and later known as Ostara or Eastre by the early Saxons. She was the wife of the Sun god Baal. Easter was originally a raucus Saxon festival marking the Vernal Equinox, the return of the Sun, the marking of spring and fertility, but had it's roots in much earlier fertility celebrations with the early  Babylonians and Egyptians. These celebrations of spring were practiced (and still are in many places, although slightly differently) in Europe right through the middle ages.

The church needed a way to absorb these pagan traditions into the Christian holidays so that converting all of these pagans to Christianity would be easier if they didn't have to give up their festivals, rituals and celebrations. So they incorporated the very name of the holiday, the theme of rising and resurrection, as the pagan holiday was a celebration of the rising of the Sun (think about the sunrise services), they even changed the day to better align with the Pagan holiday. Even the rabbit and the eggs are a result of this incorporation.

The secular theme of Rabbits and colored eggs is interesting and not merely a modern commercialization of the holiday, but has it's roots in pagan worship as well. The modern story of the Easter Bunny handing out colored eggs actually dates back to 16th Century Germany where children were told that the "Easter Hare" would bring them eggs on Easter Sunday if they were good. But the symbolism goes back much farther than that. The rabbit is a sacred symbol to the goddess Ostara in Indo-European mythology. The eggs have a much richer mythology dating back to the beginning of human history. In almost every culture the egg has symbolized fertility, birth and re-birth, and has been part of the celebration of the resurrection of countless ancient gods. Ishtar herself was said to have been born of an egg that fell from heaven into the Euphrates river. The Egyptians actually dyed their eggs and gave them as offerings in their own Easter celebrations.

Easter is certainly not the only pagan holiday absorbed by the Christian church, Christmas is another one and actually an incorporation of the twin festival to the same pagan gods at the time of the Winter Solstice when the godess is worshipped and plead with to return the Sun. Symbolism itself is an ever changing thing, each generation takes and molds it to fit it's beliefs and culture and it's understandable that the Church used these symbols to garner followers, but it places a whole new light on Easter when thought of in the context of it's history.

For myself, Easter as a Christian holiday holds no meaning, I don't believe in Jesus as the Messiah, I don't believe in God at all. If there was a man named Jesus, and he did in fact die on a cross and his tomb was indeed empty three days later, I have to believe it to be more likely the result of a tomb robbery than that of a risen god. Easter as a pagan holiday likewise holds no meaning for me. The goddess Ishtar or Ostara is just as silly an idea as that of Jesus as a god. But as a human being you can't help feel the intent of the original pagan celebration. Today is a beautiful day, where just days ago we were pelted with a late season snow storm, it's nearly all melted away now, the sun is shining, the temperature is rising, and spring is in the air. The birds are chirping away happilly, and you can almost feel life and vitality returning.

So for me, that's what Easter is about, and I'm not about to reject a perfectly valid excuse for celebration, just because some silly religion has stolen it and twisted it into just another virtual shackle of a restrictive and burdensom belief system. I'm going outside, and enjoying this beautiful Spring day.

UPDATE:

Wouldn't you know, by the time I finished researching and writing this posting, the Sun that was so gloriously shining this morning has now taken residence behind a pretty thick blanket of clouds, the temperature has dropped a few degrees to be just around chilly, and it looks like there's an impending rain storm coming. Oh well, this is after all Connecticut.

ANOTHER UPDATE:

Apparently some Christians are aware of the Pagan Origins of Easter and are claiming that God will punish those who celebrate Easter. Believers beware! Note: don't take everything on this guy's page too seriously, I couldn't find any evidence for some of his claims, I think a few of those correlations he just made up to strengthen his point.