Easter will be celebrated this week-end wherever Christianity has gone throughout the world. It is observed in many of the more traditional and so-called orthodox churches with a great number of traditions and preceded and followed by special liturgical seasons, such as Lent and the Octave of Easter. The word "Easter" occurs only once in the King James version of the New Testament where it is used, mistakenly, to translate the Greek word for "Passover." The derivation of the word is the subject of much debate amongst scholars some of whom, following the 8th century English scholar Bede, believe it came from Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon name of a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility.
The setting of a date for Easter has also been a matter of controversy and there is still no means of predicting when it will occur in the year. One has to wait for ecclesiastical authorities in the orthodox churches to give the date and here, too, there is disagreement between eastern and western branches of orthodoxy which hold their celebrations on different dates. Dates aside, nothing hinders the unfettered celebration of the coming of spring with surviving elements of the ancient worship its goddess. The rabbit features in the festivities because it is a symbol of fertility as are the Easter eggs which are distributed as gifts at this time of year.
Most scholars emphasize the relationship of Easter to Passover for it was at this time of the Jewish year that Jesus Christ was crucified and rose from the grave. We are not instructed to observe any annual feast to commemorate the Lord’s death and resurrection in the Bible, but we are commanded to eat bread and drink wine in a solemn weekly remembrance of the event. Instructions for the observance of the Lord’s Supper, as this memorial feast is called in Scripture, are very clearly and authoritatively given through the apostle Paul and recorded in 1 Corinthians 11: 23-34.
The Jews were required to keep the weekly Sabbath and five annual feasts which were: Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Trumpets and the Day of Atonement. These were different from any feasts of the pagan nations which surrounded them or those which they had encountered in their Egyptian bondage or the wilderness wanderings of the Exodus. To the contrary, it is thought that some of the present-day feasts celebrated in the orthodox churches were originally an assimilation of pagan festivals adopted for the purpose of persuading the people being evangelized to throw in their lot with the church. Festivals discovered by early missionaries were given a cloak of Christian terminology in order to wean people away from their pagan beliefs and bring them into the church.
Paul expresses concern over the Galatian Christians’ observance of various feasts. He says, "But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain" (Galatians 4:9-11). The early Christians came together one the first day of the week to observe the Lord’s Supper and to hear the word proclaimed, but did not observe the day as sacred. They were bound together as they were "continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer" (Acts 2:42).
Despite all the commercial pressure to do so, let’s not be drawn into the celebration of pagan festivals just because everyone else is doing so. Let’s rather stand with the Word of God and worship Him in the spirit and the truth which it declares.