April 2010 – For many parts of Christian America, Easter is the time of year that little girls dress in new pastel dresses and shiny patent leather shoes; young boys don their button-up shirts and clip-on ties and ladies parade in their new Sunday best.

Easter brings various traditions, but where did they come from? To understand, we must dig into three traditions and examine the roots of Easter.

 

Jewish roots
The first set of roots is comprised of the Jewish traditions at the time of Christ. Matthew 26:17 says Jesus and His disciples celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread, or Passover, which in Hebrew is Pesach. (See below.)

During Pesach, Jews celebrated their delivery from Egypt. They read the scriptural accounts of God bringing plagues to their slave masters and of their ancestors spreading the blood of a lamb across the doorpost so the death angel would pass over their houses. Celebrations included animal sacrifices for the cleansing of sins.

Today, Christians celebrate Easter with a remembrance of the sacrifice made by Jesus for their sins. The similarities between Pesach and Easter urged first century Christians to use a name similar to Pesach. Hence, the yearly “Resurrection Sunday” was known as Pasach.

The proximity to Pesach also caused some controversy among Christians in the first century. Dr. Lewis J. Patsavos, in his article “Dating Pasach in the Orthodox Church,” points out the origin of the controversy. He says, “The tradition of the Synoptic Gospels identifies the Lord’s Last Supper with His disciples as a Passover meal. This would place the death of our Lord on the day after Passover. On the other hand, the tradition of the Gospel of John situates the death of our Lord at the very hour the Peschal lambs were sacrificed on the day of Passover itself.”

The result was two groups of Christians celebrating Pasach on two different dates. In the first century, those with a Jewish background wanted to celebrate on the date that Jesus rose. According to modern calendars, that would put Easter on April 15. The main difference between the two camps was that those following a stricter date celebrated Pasach on different days of the week while the other group always celebrated on a Sunday.

Christian roots
As one of the two most celebrated Christian holidays of the year, Pasach is obviously rooted in Christian tradition. First century Christians made every Sunday a “little Easter.” Thus, Christians without a Jewish background wanted to loosely use the Passover dates but still have Easter on a Sunday.

Bryan Fischer, Th.M. (from Dallas Theological Seminary) and AFA director of issues analysis, says, “I think it’s immaterial which calendar you choose. Paul says in Romans 14 that it is a choice of ‘moral indifference.’ Some regard one day above another, some regard all alike. However, I do think it’s right to commemorate Easter by focusing on it every single Sunday. The reason [first century Christians] worshipped on Sunday rather than Saturday, was that Sunday was ‘Resurrection Day.’ They met on Sunday because that was the day He rose from the dead. Originally, the church didn’t celebrate Easter once a year, they celebrated it once a week.”

In fact, some early Christians would not wait to commemorate Easter on Sunday. Many would prepare for Sunday by fasting on Wednesday or Friday, or both. However, soon it was decided that Easter did deserve a special annual festival. As with the date, there was controversy over how this festival should take place, how long it should last and what should and should not be required.

In days of antiquity there were several days of recognition in the Pasach season. Many of these days are still celebrated, although they may look different. The first day is Fat Tuesday. The 40-day season of Lent would begin the next day, so Fat Tuesday was set apart as a carne vale, Latin for “farewell to flesh,” where the modern word carnival originates. It was a chance to enjoy the flesh before the suffering of Lent began. This tradition continues, although in America it goes by another name, Mardi Gras.

Ash Wednesday followed. This is the official beginning of Lent. The name itself is found as early as the eighth century. According to The Catholic Encyclopedia, a priest would bless a patron with the ashes of palm branches burnt from the previous year’s Palm Sunday. The priest would say the words: “Remember, man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.”

Ash Wednesday was followed by a season of fasting. Some controversy surrounded what kind of fasting should be observed during this season. Some believed the fast should last 40 days. This could be fasting from meat, from milk and eggs, from eating more than one meal a week or any food at all. Some preferred to hold to a 40-hour fast. Both found basis in Moses’ 40 years and Jesus’ 40 days in the desert.

Whatever the form of fasting, many looked upon the season as a time for personal suffering. The Catholic Encyclopedia points out this may have been influenced by “an erroneous etymology of the word Pasch, which was current among the Greeks. Pasch really comes from a Hebrew word meaning ‘passage,’ but the Greeks took it to be identical with paschein, ‘to suffer.’”

The last week of Lent is called Holy Week, or Passion Week. It begins on Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a young colt (Matthew 21:1-11). Many churches reenact this event on the Sunday before Easter.

Maundy Thursday, also known as Holy Thursday, is the next day to note. This holy day commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus and His disciples. There are differences in when believers choose to remember this day. In Rome, the Lord’s Supper was done during the day, but in Africa everything was done at night in an effort to be more literal.

Many of today’s Protestants are not familiar with some of the days celebrated during the Easter season, but most will know Good Friday. The Friday before Easter commemorates the day Jesus was killed. Historically, some have chosen to use this day as the time to feast as a way of celebrating the sacrifice made for their sins. It also prepares for the 40-hour fast to come.

The day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is known as Holy Saturday. This closes the Lent season and is mixed with joy and sadness. The ancient church practiced fasting for 40 hours before dawn on Easter Sunday. They held special services preparing for the joyous celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus.

Easter Sunday, or Pasach, finally came. It was a time of feasting, having fellowship and solemnly focusing on Jesus. Although every week celebrated the Resurrection, this day was special. Worship songs focused on the reality of the Resurrection and the hope that it brought.

All these practices have Biblical roots and today’s church can point to events in Scripture when asked why something is done. But is there Scripture that supports Easter eggs and a bunny hopping across the front lawn to leave gifts for children?

Pagan roots
Most of the commercialized Easter traditions, even the name itself is thought to have pagan origins. Although true Easter has no pagan roots, many traditions followed by the western church do. Fischer notes, “The term Easter is shrouded in mystery. It seems to come from a Teutonic goddess who was a goddess of fertility. However, I don’t think Christians need to be alarmed by that. Monday was named after the old moon god, and Thursday was named after the god Thor. The term etymologically may be rooted in Norse mythology, but there is no reason Christians can’t view it as perfectly acceptable.”

But where did the idea of hiding eggs and dressing up in bunny suits come from? In pagan thinking, spring was a time of new life. Winter brought death, but now death had been defeated. It is believed both the egg and the bunny were signs of fertility and hence, life.

“The church,” Fischer points out, “seems to have redeemed the egg. It might have pagan origins, but they looked at the egg as a symbol of the tomb and just as the life emerges from the egg, Jesus emerged from death in the tomb. For me, those things are largely harmless for innocent practices as long as we don’t communicate to our kids there is any spiritual significance to bunnies or eggs.”

No matter the date, no matter how many special observances a person follows during the Pasach season, what is important is that every believer remembers and celebrates the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for eternal life. It is not important to wait until the first Sunday after the full moon after the vernal equinox. In fact, it is important not to wait. Every day a follower of Jesus wakes up should be taken as an opportunity to live and serve the God who defeated death.

Fischer says, “Every Sunday and every worship song is a celebration of Easter. In reality His resurrection provides us with strength and hope for every day. We place our faith in Christ every day because we believe He has risen from the dead and He is a living person interceding for us. So, for the Christian, every single day is a celebration of Easter. Every single day is Easter Sunday for a Christian because if He did not rise, we would not have a reason to place our faith in Him.”   

When is Easter?
Traditionally, Pesach’s date was determined by the first full moon after the vernal equinox. The vernal equinox is the day when the sun is directly above Earth’s equator, which usually happens on March 20 or 21. Passover was celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. If the moon was full on a Sunday, Passover was celebrated on the next Sunday.

Some thought Pasach should be celebrated on the 15th of Nisan, or April 15. Others thought it should be on a Sunday. The First Ecumenical Council (Nicea, A.D. 325) ruled that Christians would celebrate the holy day on the first Sunday after Passover. That tradition is largely followed today.