03/26/2026
"Easter" was never a 'Christian' holiday.
Passover and Resurrection are the actual Holy days of Followers of Christ.
The term, 'Easter', came from another religious celebration of the spring goddess, Estar, or Eostre. Even the idea of the wicker basket, and egg hunts are from this practice.
It's not uncommon for missionaries (Saint Patrick for example) to use what the locals already worship and understand to explain Christ.
I'm sure that some well meaning church leaders used the rituals of this pagan practice to explain Jesus and The Gospel to Estar's worshippers.
Unfortunately, at some point, in an attempt to win over the people, The Church also adopted the pagan rituals and eventually even the label of their observance (Easter) as their own.
Here-in lies the problem - The Church stopped making a distinction between the pagan observance and the Christian observance; between the lie and The Truth..
Making the waters so murky that even good hearted Christians are giving untruthful and unbiblical reasons for these practices.
And guess what happens when unbelievers or observers from the outside looking in - see what we're doing and hear us telling lies about our own rituals and traditions(?)
1.) They either believe it and come away with a false perception of our Faith, or
2.) Laugh and mock us for our ignorance and disingenuousness.
Either way, it is not a good look for The Church.
I'm not trying to be trivial.
I sincerely believe that if we stop trying to hijack other religions - and be authentic to our own - we'll not only "win" way more souls, but keep them; because we didn't bring them in under false teachings.
Can we use another culture's ways and understandings to teach them about Christ; about The Gospel? Of course we can!
But, we are not trying to assimilate to their culture. We're encouraging them to assimilate to ours - The Body of Christ.
So, what might this look like in your church or home for the Passover / Resurrection celebration?
BEGIN WITH THE TRUTH - ask yourself how what you're doing observes the Passover and Resurrection in biblical truth.
The early Church would have observed the Passover as fulfilled by The Messiah, Jesus..
The Communion being part of that meal and celebration. This observance also had music and merriment.
And if you decide to participate in something like egg hunts, for example - explain where the idea of the baskets and the eggs actually came from and how that God the Father is The real Creator of the spring season, and how He chose this time of year to resurrect His Son, Jesus and give us new Life.
And maybe these rituals are a reminder of how we have overcome the ignorance of worshiping pagan gods.
You'd be amazed at how receptive children are to the truth and how much more meaningful and lasting your traditions with them will become.
This is RESURRECTION DAY! Easter is another pagan observance on the secular calendar.
[Jody, CPLC]
