We Celebrate Easter Because...

Jesus rose from the dead on Easter?

Nope.

Messiah rose from the dead on, or near, the Feast of First Fruits, one of the 7 Feasts of the Lord found in the Jewish and Christian Bibles.

Christians celebrate Easter because the founder of the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy Roman Emperor Constantine, issued the following decree in 325 CE at the Council of Nicaea:

When the question relative to the sacred festival of Easter arose, it was universally thought that it would be convenient that all should keep the feast on one day; for what could be more beautiful and more desirable than to see this festival, through which we receive the hope of immortality, celebrated by all with one accord and in the same manner? It was declared to be particularly unworthy for this, the holiest of festivals, to follow the customs (the calculation) of the Jews who had soiled their hands with the most fearful of crimes, and whose minds were blinded. In rejecting their custom we may transmit to our descendants the legitimate mode of celebrating Easter; which we have observed from the time of the Saviour’s passion (according to the day of the week).

We ought not therefore to have anything in common with the Jew, for the Saviour has shown us another way; our worship following a more legitimate and more convenient course (the order of the days of the week: And consequently in unanimously adopting this mode, we desire, dearest brethren to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jew. For it is truly shameful for us to hear them boast that without their direction we could not keep this feast. How can they be in the right, they who, after the death of the Saviour, have no longer been led by reason but by wild violence, as their delusion may urge them? They do not possess the truth in this Easter question, for in their blindness and repugnance to all improvements they frequently celebrate two Passovers in the same year. We could not imitate those who are openly in error.

How, then, could we follow these Jews who are most certainly blinded by error? For to celebrate a Passover twice in one year, is totally inadmissible.

But even if this were not so it would still be your duty not to tarnish your soul by communication with such wicked people (the Jews). You should consider not only that the number of churches in these provinces make a majority, but also that it is right to demand what our reason approves, and that we should have nothing in common with the Jews.

It's with a somber conviction that we must admit that most of Christianity this weekend will be celebrating a feast named after a pagan goddess, thanks to a Jew-hating Roman emperor who

• Declared his companion to be Sol Invictus, the Invincible Sun god.
  
  
• Proclaimed sun-day to be the new Sabbath
  
  
• Rose early during sun-rises at the steps of the church to worship the sun, instituting the first state-sanctioned sunrise services.
  
  
• Murdered his son and his wife years after becoming a professing "Christian".
  
  
• Proclaimed himself Pontifex Maximus, a title for the high priest of the ancient pagan Roman religion, now given as a title for Roman Catholic popes.
  

Ouch.