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A Look At Easter

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Categories: Church of Christ Bulletin Articles Tags: ,

On Sunday, April 24th, millions of people around the world will celebrate Christ’s resurrection from the dead, by observing the holiday called “Easter.”

The word “Easter” comes from “Eastre,” the Anglo-Saxon name of “Ostara,” the pagan Teutonic goddess of Spring and fertility (see this article too). As the rabbit was sacred to this goddess, it appears there was a custom among ancient Egyptians and Romans to give eggs as presents at this time of the year. This practice was carried out to ensure that the recipient would have a fertile and productive year.

Many of the customs associated with Easter illustrate this and other pagan connections. The yearly observance soon included Palm Sunday, Ash Wednesday, and Lent. Assimilation of this pagan practice into “Christian” observances became quite common. The egg was simply borrowed as a symbol of the Christian holiday. Some were dyed red to represent Christ’s shed blood.

The word “Easter,” is found only once in the King James Bible in Acts 12:4 KJV, and is a mistranslation. The Greek word translated Easter is “pascha,” and is correctly rendered “passover” in later translations (cf. Acts 12:4 ESV; Acts 12:4; Acts 12:4 NASB). It is obvious that the King James translators used this term in a passage where the context clearly shows that a Christian holiday is not being discussed at all, but the killing of James, the brother of John by Herod (Acts 12:1-2).

The practice of a yearly observance of Easter began early in the form of a so-called “Christian” Passover. Many Jews continued to keep their Jewish customs and religious holidays after their conversion to Christ. Even Paul was not averse to observing Jewish customs when expedient (Acts 18:18-21), but his teaching indicates they were to be kept on an individual basis (Romans 14:5-6) and should not be bound on others (Gal. 2:3-5).

Paul condemns observing certain days set aside by man in a religious sense (Gal. 4:8-11), and yet, shortly after the death of the apostles, some of the Jewish festivals began to be observed as Christian festivals. Easter was officially recognized by a church sliding into apostasy in A.D. 325 at the Council of Nicea.

The Bible is silent regarding any “yearly” observance of Christ’s resurrection, and thus “Easter” is based upon human tradition — not God’s Word (Mark 7:1-13). Traditions of men are wrong when (1) they become matters of doctrine (Mark 7:6-8); (2) when a practice is bound upon all (Matthew 23:3-4), or (3) when they displace the commands of God by the keeping of the tradition (Mark 7:9-13).

Our Lord instituted His Supper as the proper memorial to commemorate His death (Matthew 26:26-29; Luke 22:14-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-36. Both biblical and historical evidence indicate that this was a weekly observance (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2) — not a yearly one.

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