why do churches celebrate Easter?
Goddess of Fertility
Easter got its name from Ostara, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of fertility and rebirth. European tribes celebrated the beginning of spring at the vernal equinox, when day and night are equal in length, by blessing seeds for growth and placing colored eggs on an altar. They believed that this ceremony would bring them fertility for the upcoming year.
Christian missionaries noticed that this pagan celebration took place around the time of the resurrection of Christ, so they adopted Easter as a Christian holiday to increase conversions to Christianity.
Easter Hare
The Romans believed that all life proceeded from an egg, so the egg came to symbolize birth and rebirth. Christians regarded eggs as the seeds of life and attributed them with the symbol of Jesus' resurrection.
The rabbit was used in early Easter celebrations to symbolize fertility, perhaps because these animals give birth to multiple offspring at a time. Anglo-Saxon mythology says that Ostara changed her pet bird into a rabbit to entertain a group of children, and the rabbit laid brightly colored eggs for them.
Easter was once celebrated by giving colored eggs to children and later evolved to hiding them in the grass, where they had supposedly been laid by a hare. Children referred to this Easter mascot as the "Easter Hare," which later became known as the "Easter Bunny."
Comments
As the festival of Eostre was a celebration of the renewal of life in the spring it was easy to make it a celebration of the resurrection from the dead of Jesus. There is no doubt that the Church (of Rome) in its early days adopted the old pagan customs and gave a "Christian" meaning to them.
It would have been suicide for the very early Christian converts to celebrate their holy days with observances that did not coincide with celebrations that already existed. To save lives, the missionaries cleverly decided to spread their religious message slowly throughout the populations by allowing them to continue to celebrate pagan feasts, but to do so in a Christian manner.
As it happened, the pagan festival of Eastre occurred at the same time of year as the Christian observance of the Resurrection of Christ. It made sense, therefore, to alter the festival itself, to make it a Christian celebration as converts were slowly won over. The early name, Eastre, was eventually changed to its modern spelling, Easter.
From "The American Book of Days," by George William Douglas
The idea that Easter came from a pagan celebration is interesting but historically false, or at least there is no documented proof to indicate this, only assumptions and reconstructions based on partial tales that still existed. Easter occurs at Passover, which is not related at all to any pagan celebration. It celebrates the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus which occurred at Passover time with the crucifixion occurring on either a Thursday or Friday (this is open to discussion) but prior to the Sabbath which occurs between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday. Easter Sunday is the day the two Mary's went to the tomb and found it empty and that is the day the resurrection is celebrated.
Easter eggs actually came about (according to some scholars) due to the split of the church into the Catholic and Protestant faiths. Since eggs were not eaten during the period of lent by Catholics, their use was promoted by the Protestant church as a way to show the differences between the two Christian faiths. The origin of the Easter Egg is not certain however the first documented cases of Easter Eggs occur during the 17th century among certain Protestant sects. They were used as gifts to good boys and girls however the children built nests in the house where they would find the eggs the next morning. Basically a take off on the Christmas stocking and, since eggs are normally found in nests, that is where they would be place. How the Easter Hare came about is not documented but again is mentioned first in writings of this time. It is supposed that children were told that the Easter Hare delivered the eggs simply because the time of year that Easter occurs is also the mating time for the hare. Normally hard to find they were seen very frequently hoping about madly. This is also the source of the term "Mad as a March Hare" since the mating urge overcomes the normal shyness of the animal. Since hares are not found in North America it was changed to the Easter Rabbit and later the Easter Bunny when the tradition was brought over here. The eggs themselves were not stated to be laid by the hare in the earliest writings but rather delivered by them.
Because it is still, as it always has been, the celebration of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Do you know what the sum total of the historical evidence for this goddess of yours is? One single mention by the venerable Bede who thinks that an Anglo-Saxon month (Eosturmonath) might have been named after a goddess whose worship had died out long before Christianity arrived. He decided that, if this was the case, her name would have been Eostre. The name "Ostara" was invented in the 19th century by Grimm who speculated that there might have been a German equivalent.
There is no other evidence for this goddess's existence at all. There are no myths or legends about her, she does not appear in any of the stories or lists of the Gods - neither Anglo-Saxon, German nor Viking (they have a similar pantheon). There are no known inscriptions, no statues, no temples, no sites, no prayers. There is nothing about what she was goddess of - it is all guesswork, a mountain built on Bede's molehill. Most modern scholars are of the opinion the Bede made her up to explain the month and she actually never existed.
There is nothing in the historical record about this spring festival you describe, there is nothing about coloured eggs on an altar. All neo-pagan invention, a complete fantasy.
Same with the Easter hare. The Ostara "changing the bird" stuff is another neo-pagan invention which is actually based on an old Christian myth about the child Jesus bringing a bird back to life. The Ostara story was unknown before the 20th century.
BTW, which is it? Easter Hare or Easter Rabbit - you seem confused. They are different animals, it can't be both.
In actual fact, the roots of Easter are in the JEWISH Passover but people like you seem strangely keen to ignore any JEWISH origins for Christian customs and replace them with White Anglo-Saxon Pagan ones. The JEWS are the ones who use eggs in their Passover, not your favoured WASPs. It's why the word for Easter in almost every other language, including the Catholic & Orthodox Churches favoured Latin and Greek, is based on Pesach (Hebrew for Passover),
Of course if you could find a web-site which gave the actual original Anglo-Saxon source or quoted some archaeological evidence for all this stuff, it might be worth looking at. I can guarantee that you will not,.
Do not make such a big deal out of one English word.
The English word "Easter" relates to Estre, a Teutonic (German) goddess of the rising light of day and spring. No one seems to know why this English word was used for the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The great feast of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was celebrated long before the unchristian English word "Easter" was first used. And the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is directly related to the Jewish feast of Passover going back to about 3,000 B.C.E.
Most other languages use the Jewish/Christian word for "Passover" for the great celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ that English speakers call "Easter."
The Greek term for "Passover" is Páskha. It is the Aramaic form of the Hebrew pesach (meaning passover). Other languages:
Afrikaans: Paasfees
Albanian: Pashkët
Breton: Pask Seder
Catalan: Pasqua
Chamorro: Pasgua
Cornish: Pask
Danish: Påske or Paaske
Dutch: Pasen or Paschen
Esperanto: Paskon
Finnish: Pääsiäistä
French: Pâques
Galician: Pascuas
Icelandic: Páska
Indonesian: Paskah
Italian: Pasqua
Jèrriais: Pâques
Latin: Pascha
Norwegian: Påske
Portuguese: Páscoa
Scottish: Pask
Sicilian: Pasqua
Spanish: Pascuas
Swahili: Pasaka
Swedish: Påsk
Welsh: Pasg
Even in the German provinces of the Lower Rhine where the Teutonic goddess Estre had its origins, the people call the feast Paisken not Ostern.
With love in Christ.
For Christians, the origin of Easter is simply the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ about 2,000 years ago. According to the Gospel accounts, Jesus Christ, the true Messiah promised in the Old Testament, was crucified and resurrected at the time of the Jewish Passover. Since that awesome event took place, those who believe Christ is their Messiah have honored that day and often celebrated it with the traditional Passover. As the Gospel of Christ spread throughout non-jewish nations, among people who did not have a history of celebrating the Passover, the pagan rites of Easter gradually became assimilated into what the Christian church called "Resurrection Day." Compromising the commandments of God with the comfort of the world is as old as the nation of Israel itself. Actually, American history teaches us that Easter was dismissed as a pagan holiday by the nation's founding Puritans and did not begin to be widely observed until just after the Civil War. Those interested in a Christian view of American history and the gradual compromise of America's Biblical foundations may wish to read books such as The Light and the Glory by Peter Marshall and David Manuel.
hi
the first actual sermon of the Church became an Easter sermon. another early Church sermon became besides. we ought to continuously no longer in basic terms rejoice Jesus' resurrection once a twelve months, and we also ought to no longer in basic terms once a week on Sunday. we are below Jesus Christs' device the position placed aside daily as holy. besides the indisputable fact that, if someone needs to rigidity certain days for setting up only that a lot more desirable attempt in worshipping the Lord then there is not any longer some thing incorrect in that. picking Easter might want to be tremendous because many households are in a position to collect jointly in worship and prayer. What all this skill is you're both correct. you should rejoice the Lord wide-spread yet picking certain days to position in additional desirable attempt is tremendous. i wish this helped, John.
Me myself i am christian. Okay well Jesus died on the cross for us on easter. He knew he was going to die but he did not shame us before he passed. He LOVED us just to take away our sins. The eggs represent the stone the covered, i guess you can call a tunnel he was put in after his death. Though i am not sure bout the easter bunny either HAHA
. So I grew up knowing all the christian holidays and i noticed that they all are what people celebrate.
Like christmas -CHRISTmas and that's when he was born
Easter - His death
Mothers day- Momma Mary day
He even fasted for 40 days and nights
He was accused of impersonating of being God's son bro GOD'S SON
That's why they killed him. He was wearing a crown of thorns , do you know how painful that would have been? He had to carry his own cross before he was nailed, you know that he suffered just for us and still loved us? HIS OWN MOM WATCHED HIM DIE!! When he came back , he proved the 12 deciples he was there. He showed the holes in his hands and feet, and then left.
Foundation of the Christian Church?
probably because it is considered the most important holiday in christian religions...