A look at the origins of Easter

To some, Easter may be just another gratefully accepted opportunity for a break in the hum drum routine with little serious thought given to its meaning or origin. To others it may be a harmless observance of a myth from the distant past that gives an opportunity to provide a fun day for the children with chocolate bunnies, cute baby chicks and colorful Easter eggs.

A little research leads to the discovery that the true origin of the holiday we call Easter, when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Christ, was originally a pagan festival. It was observed in honor of an ancient Teutonic pagan goddess named Eostre and celebrated on the day in the spring when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are of equal length. Eostre played a similar function to the earlier pagan goddess of Ishtar and Venus of the Babylonian and Greek polytheistic religions. She was the goddess of love and fertility and new life. Sometime in the eighth century, the church decided to designate an annual day of special celebration for the resurrection of Christ. Placing it on the calendar on the very day of the vernal equinox, the day the pagans were celebrating the feast of Eostre. The leaders of the church were hoping to replace and ultimately eliminate the idolatrous worship of the goddess Eostre of the pagans. That is why an odd mixture of Christian and pagan practices lingers to this day in the modern day celebration of Easter.

Nevertheless, from the beginning of the Christian church, the resurrection of Christ from the dead was the preeminent doctrine of the church and the most essential belief of Christian faith. The Apostle Paul sums up the Christian significance of the resurrection by devoting the entire fifteenth chapter of his epistle to the Corinthians to the topic. It is one of the most powerful chapters of the Bible.

For example in the 14th verse he puts his entire ministry and apostleship on the line when he writes, "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching in vain and your faith is also in vain."

He makes an even stronger assertion in verse 17 where he writes, "And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." In other words, he declares that if Christ is not alive his whole personal career as a Christian ministry is a sham as well as all other ministers of the Christian Gospel.

Furthermore, without the resurrection of Jesus Christ there is not a single person ever born who may so much as hope in the forgiveness of their sins and there is not a single ray of hope in this human condition of sin and misery for a better and more enduring life.

-- Gene Holman is pastor at the Living Word Fellowship