I've addressed Easter in the past before: the name "Easter" comes from the Anglo-Saxon's goddess of spring, fertility, and sexual impulse, Eostre. Of course, the Anglo-Saxons weren't alone in their thinking: as I mentioned in my post on Lent & Easter, the Babylonian "queen of heaven," Semeramis (also worshipped and known as Ishtar), the wife of Nimrod and mother of Tammuz, was the origination of the Easter spring/fertility goddess. Aphrodite of the Greeks, Juno of the Latins, Isis of the Egyptians, Astarte of the Moabites, Ashtoreth of the Zidonians & Israelites, Ashtar of the Assyrians, and Eostre of the early Anglo-Saxons, just to name a few, all were localized versions of the Babylonian Semeramis/Ishtar, who we have in modern form as Easter.
"Easter" and the related spring/fertility festivals built around it are nothing new.
All these false goddesses (although more correctly "goddess" singular, as these names are all variations of the same deity) originate from the Babylonian myth of Semeramis (Ishtar). As the myth goes, the wife of Nimrod, Ishtar, was born as such: a giant egg fell magically from heaven and landed in the Euphrates river. The fish rolled the egg to shore, where the birds hatched it, and out came our friendly fertility fallacy, Ishtar, whom the Babylonians (and indeed hundreds of other cultures throughout history) worshipped as the queen of heaven, the goddess of spring and fertility.
A common theme among all versions of the Ishtar/Easter myth is that of sexuality. Babylonians worshipped Ishtar as the goddess of fertility and sexual impulse, and throughout these millenia of Easter celebrations, there has often been sexuality involved. In Hasting’s Ency. On Religious Ethics, p. 117, we read of these ancient "easters":
A spring feast was celebrated. These occasions were marked with great sexual license.
Just as it was for the Lent ritual, the Catholic church of the 4th and 5th centuries adopted the various pagan festivals and slapped a Christian label on it ("Jesus resurrected on this day!") so as to convert the massive pagan cultures to the Catholic faith. Fortunately, the excessively negative light in which Catholics (indeed most Christians today) portray sex has pretty much eliminated any immoral sexuality associated with Easter. That said, we still keep remnants of the ancients, with rabbits, eggs, and a spring festival all symbolizing fertility.
Even to this day, despite the supposed Christian holiness and purity of Christ in us, we've been unable to shake the very paganism that angered God enough to scatter Israel and punish them for more than 2 millenia. If Christians are part of Israel (as Paul argues in the New Testament), are we not also the people of God? Are we not angering him with the same festivals he hated in Solomon's day? If Israel's paganism angered God then, does ours not anger Him now? Or has God magically and suddenly transformed from an angry, mean-faced, Old Testament God, into a touchy-feely, happy, New Testament God? Don't fool yourself, God has never changed.
It was because the Israelites would not turn from pagan ways that God punished them; they were battled, taken into captivity, and dispersed throughout the world. First northern Israel (Ephraim) was dispersed because they loved paganism. Then southern Israel (Judah) was dispersed in 70 CE. If the Jewish return to Israel in 1947 is any indicator, that brings a talley of an almost 2000 year punishment. For northern Israel, they do not even know who they are, no one does; the 10 northern tribes are lost. Their punishment has spanned more than 3000 years. 3000 years! How much more can that be stressed? God makes it pretty clear -- no, he pretty much yells in our face throughout Scripture -- how much he hates paganism and false gods; yet here were are, 3000 years later, still observing fertility festivals, named after the very same goddess the Israelites were punished for worshipping & celebrating.
Oh, but surely God doesn't mind this time around since we pretend Jesus resurrected on Easter day.
If Easter was in fact such an ungodly, idolatrous thing, one would think us holy and sacred Christians would be doing hand-stands to please God, jumping at every opportunity to spite ungodly things. Alas, I don't see anyone doing handstands. That's just the thing: we like to pretend we're holy without actually committing anything difficult to God. Maybe I go to church to make people think I'm a good person, but in reality I've never talked to God and I don't have a relationship with him.
That is why despite a blatantly idolatrous fertility goddess festival, complete with decked out rites (sunrise service) and rituals (painting eggs, hiding eggs for children, eating a tasty pig, etc), we Christians really don't want to give it up. We don't like to admit when we're wrong. That's hard. And we don't like to change, that's really hard too, it's easier just to deny fault and continue on.
Admitting wrong takes humility, of which there is a definite lack in the modern church, heck in all the world today there is little humility (myself 100% included, I've always struggled with pride and trying to impress people). With the way we act, one would think we're all big bosses, American Idols, God's own righteous prophet, somebody special. Yet what are we really? We're people who do terrible, disgusting sins we keep secret from everyone else. Ouch. As Jesus put it, everyone has sinned and fallen short of God. Lack of humility prevents us from ditching this ungodly festival.
And on the issue of changing your lifestyle and your beliefs, well that requires doing something other than going to church, and for modern day believers, often that is just too much to ask. Our lethargic spiritual lives, and our resistance to change prevents us from dumping paganism.
To pile more dung on the heap, for some, there are yet more reasons to continue on with the ways of our parents and grandparents. Even if one acknowledges the pagan roots (and branches, and indeed the whole tree) of Easter, there still lies the issue of family. Others, especially family, stop us from leaving behind idolatry. Dear me, what will my family think when they invite me to their church's Easter sunrise service, and their Easter dinner afterward? How will my kids react? I can't deprive them of Easter, I have so many fond memories! For me, it's just a fun holiday to go to church, eat ham, and hide eggs for our kids, spend time with the family. For me, it's so innocent. For me, it isn't pagan. For me, it's ok. For me, it's his resurrection day.
When do you suppose, dear blog readers, would be a good time to stop thinking about "me" for just a second and instead consider what God thinks of all this? To God, what does it mean?
What does it mean to God? Of course we're not truely worshipping a goddess on this day, like the Israelites did and others. On one hand, at the very worst, we've kept a pagan festival out of sheer ignorance; we didn't know any better, we just accepted what was passed down to us as "Christian". On the other hand, if one thinks about what it means to God, the answer is clear as day. To God, it's gotta mean something that we observe a fertility festival, and most likely he isn't bursing with joy because of it. To Jesus, let's be honest, he's not sporting a grin while we celebrate his resurrection on a day named after a false fertility goddess. To Jesus, I doubt he's smiling on our fertility customs of eggs and rabbits either, no matter how innocent they may seem to you and I. To Jesus, Easter does mean something -- and it probably isn't what your pastor will tell you -- no matter how hard we try to justify it to ourselves, no matter how big the Christian label we slap on it. The rites & rituals we perform on Easter, be that egg painting, egg hiding, eating a pig, giving out candy rabbits, or whatever else you care to borrow from Ishtar, these rituals are not from God. If they are not from God, and are instead from a fertility goddess, doesn't that make them ungodly? If the rites and rituals are ungodly, how much more the entire holiday? All in the name of Jesus no less.
I encourage you to not take for righteous the things handed down to us by our religious leaders. If the paganism is too dear for you to let go, then maybe we ought to sing, in place of Amazing Grace, this hymn during our Easter sunrise service this Sunday. After all, we're drowning in idolatry as it is, might as well go all out, at least the song would fit the occasion.