I love Easter and the springtime. As a little girl, I loved our tradition of coloring eggs on the Saturday before Easter Sunday. I could hardly wait for Easter morning because I would be able to wear my brand new Easter outfit to church and after
church look for the basket the Easter Bunny left for me.
Now that I'm older, I understand this is also the most joyous celebration of the year. We celebrate the resurrection promise of eternal life and the newness and rebirth of spring.
As with most holidays, Easter has its roots in Christianity. Many early Christians were pagans, or gentiles, converted to Christianity. It wasn't easy to give up old ways. During that time they celebrated each spring and gave tribute to the goddess, Eastre, their goddess of offspring and springtime. When the missionaries baptized them into Christianity, they allowed these new Christians to celebrate their pagan holidays, only in a Christian manner. The pagan festival of Eastre happened during the same time as the observance of Christ's Resurrection, so the missionaries changed the festival into a Christian celebration. Eastre was eventually changed to Easter.
The custom of giving eggs has been traced back to Egyptians, Persians, Greeks and Roman. The egg symbolized life. |
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To the Jewish people, the egg symbolizes their exodus from Egypt |
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To Christians, the egg symbolizes the Resurrection of Christ. |
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The custom of decorating eggs goes back thousands of years. Long before the Bible, the egg was a sacred object and was decorated as part of religious and superstitious practices. |
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To the Egyptians, the egg was a token of the renovation of mankind after the Flood. |
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Like Easter, Passover is celebrated in the spring. The Seder, the traditional meal celebrated in Jewish homes on the first day of Passover, includes the eating of hard-boiled eggs as a symbol of the hope and joy that things are to grow again. It is likely that Jesus' Last Supper was a Passover meal. |
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Easter in Latin and Greek is "Pasha"; the Hebrew translation of that word is "Pesach" - the Hebrew word for Passover. Since the egg is so closely associated with Easter, expressions like "Paste egg" or "Pasch egg" evolved - all of which are
modernized versions of the Latin equivalent of the Hebrew word for Passover. |
 
This RingSurf Happy Easter Bunny Net Ring
is owned by KittyKapers Easter.
Floating bunny from Kids Domain; Script for Floating Objects from Dynamic Drive; Kitty Graphic from Anne's Easter Graphics; Bunny Graphic from Sharon's Gif's; Midi from Easter Midi's
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