I read a number of youth ministry related blogs weekly. This week I noticed an article entitled How to Share Your Faith at Easter Time. Intrigued, I visited the site to read the full article.
The article details all the wonderful, Christian symbolism of Easter eggs and Easter egg hunts.
Around Christmas time, I truly got tired of hearing the feud between the "Happy Holidays" folks and the "Merry Christmas" folks. My family was none too happy when I explained to them that until the early 1900s, not only was Christmas not "Christian" but most churches were against it.
So here we have the rewriting of history in regards to Easter. Before we even get to the eggs, lets talk about the name "Easter".
Easter comes from the Middle English estre, from Old English eastre, from Northumbrian Eostre. Eostre was a West Germanic goddess of spring and fertility, documented only by the Benedictine monk Bede, who was a historian of who wrote of angle-saxon history. The very name has its roots in pagan mythology.
I found it interesting how similar the names of the fertility goddesses were from a couple of regions:
Druids: Eastre
Canaanites: Ashtoreth
Babylon: Ishtar
Syria: Astarte
Greek: Artemis/Diana
Eggs and hares/rabbits are not mentioned in the biblical account of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. But they ARE referenced in these ancient pagan religions.
So, the early church grabs some pagan rituals and christianizes them, creating traditions. The modern church bewails how the world has taken these traditions and "de-christianizes" them.
Please don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that we burn all our Christmas trees or stop getting candy on Easter (I enjoy eating from the kid’s baskets!)
But the Church is to preach the gospel.
For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2)
We don’t find Paul mixing local pagan ideas and traditions into his sermons. To the contrary. In Ephesus, the local Artemis merchandisers were upset with him (Acts 19:23-41). Of all the times to work pagan culture into a message, this would have been it. He had no need to take the gospel and water it down to make it more palatable and marketable to the culture.
Instead of dismissing the crucifixion as too violent and seeker unfriendly, maybe the Church should go back to preaching Christ, and Him crucified instead of worrying about eggs and rabbits and such.