When the Spring season is upon us and there’s a sense of rebirth in the air. a main topic of conversation becomes the Easter festival; the “Christian” holiday erroneously associated with Jesus’ resurrection.
It is a belief steeped in centuries of tradition. For that reason alone, many believers around the world doggedly refuse to believe that the holiday and Christianity are separate matters. The fact that the merging of the two was the result of the early Roman Catholic Church’s persecutions and lust for earthly power falls on deaf modern-day ears.
Just recently (3/26/13) in Jacksonville, Florida’s local newspaper, The Florida Times Union, the Lifestyle section’s expert on things astronomical wrote a neutral, amusing piece connecting one of the sky’s constellations to the Easter festival. It was the constellation named Lepus, which is in the shape of the bunny rabbit.
With no axe to grind in his article, the expert made an objective, true statement about the origins of the bunny and other customs associated with Easter. He said that Easter traditions, “find their origins in the early Christian practice of adopting or altering pagan rituals in an effort to gain control over a region.”
That observation is true. It shouldn’t be lightly thrown away. It should be upsetting to those who know the purity of Christianity. Hopefully, the power and spirit of God’s Word will be allowed to enter, what for many, is a closed, almost seared conscious concerning the holiday.
Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership has righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? II Cor. 6: 14, 15.
Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them. Eph. 5: 11
The following article gives a brief description of Easter’s origins. After reading it, please consider that some things aren’t true just because it has been in observance for so long. Tradition by virtue of being tradition doesn’t mean that it always began in truth. That it may carry a Christian name or theme doesn’t necessarily make it Christian.