Easter, Bunnies, Eggs, and The Resurrection

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday! It is hands-down the most important Christian holiday. I love Christmas as much as the next person, but we were never commanded to remember Christmas. Do you know what holy day we are supposed to remember? Easter! Actually, we are supposed to remember the resurrection which happens on the day we call Easter.

Is Easter Pagan?
Where does the term Easter come from? Some say it has pagan origins. Is this correct? The word "Easter" comes from the Anglo-Saxon fertility goddess Eostre. So, is celebrating Easter pagan? Hardly.

Celebrating the resurrection of Christ finds its beginnings in the book of Acts when early Christians began to worship on Sunday. Every week was a resurrection celebration! Within years of Christ's resurrection, Christians celebrated the resurrection during the Passover time when it first took place. This was long before Anglo-Saxons had any influence on Christianity. Interestingly, to this day, Easter is called different names around the world. The original name for Easter was Pascha, and it is called that in Greece to this day.

So why would we call it Easter after Eostre? It came to be Easter by English speakers because the resurrection celebration usually landed in April, which Anglo-Saxons called the month of Eostre. Over time, as pagan cultures became Christianized, the old pagan practices related to Eostre faded as the holiday became solely connected to the resurrection of Christ.

So in other words, calling Easter a pagan holiday is like saying your birthday is a pagan holiday when it happens to fall on a Thursday because Thursday is named after the Norse god Thor and was originally known as Thor's Day.

What's Up with Easter Eggs?
This is a tradition going back to the reformer Martin Luther. Luther thought it would be fun to hide boiled eggs for the church kids. The idea was that finding a hidden egg would give the children a sense of the joy the disciples had when they found the empty tomb.

Today it takes a little more than a boiled egg to make children excited. So we fill them with candy, but this tradition did not start until the early 20th century. Candy companies were hoping to take advantage of the Easter holiday to make a buck. Hey, I am not complaining about the delicious Reeses eggs!

How About the Easter Bunny?
Again, the Easter Bunny was a Lutheran invention. Hundreds of years after Martin Luther, the Lutherans were looking for the Santa Clause of Easter, and they decided on a bunny. In German folklore, it's the Easter bunny that hides eggs and delivers Easter baskets.

It wasn't until the 20th century that the Bunny concept made it to the U.S. In the 1950s, Gene Autry, the same man that wrote, "Here Comes Santa Clause" wanted to cash in on Easter. So he wrote, "Here comes Peter Cotten Tail." It peaked at number 3 on the country music charts and began the Easter bunny craze in the United States.

If you want more Easter facts, check out the book where I got most of these called 12 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Easter.

Tomorrow I will be preaching a sermon on the resurrection, what it truly means, and why it matters to us today. I cannot wait to celebrate the resurrection of Christ with you!