In honor of Halloween,
and in honor of Jay
I am reviewing Easter
also because my kids asked me about this very subject on the way to school today
and I'm reviewing it from a Western Christian viewpoint, because that's the one that's easiest for me without getting into all kinds of philosophical yoga positions

Easter = a Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus

Easter also = another holiday that has been secularized and commercialized

I like Easter because it moves around on the calendar. It does this because it is a movable feast and is based on the lunisolar calendar, in which "months" are lunar but years are solar. Our calendar that we use now, the Gregorian one, is a solar calendar. Research that later if you want, but we are talking Easter here.

huh? OK, so the months in a lunisolar year are about 29-30 days long. This only gives you a year with about 364 days, so there has to be a leap year every so often. So like the Hebrew calendar (dating from 3761 BC) that has 354 days, every 3 years or so, you add an extra month.

Isn't this what we have now? No, I already answered that.

Why is Easter based on that? I'm glad you asked that. (Just play along here - I'm aware that I'm asking and answering my own questions) Easter was originally a "pagan" holiday. Pagan meaning not Christian. So when it was taken over (we'll get to this in a minute), it was, for a while, celebrated on different days of the week. We all know (don't pretend you don't) now that it's celebrated on Sunday. An Easter rule, implemented in the Middle Ages, is observed on the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox. When it says full moon though, it means the Paschal full moon, which is different from the astronomical full moon. Man Jay, I think I picked the hardest holiday evah! Paschal comes from Pascha which translates from which translates from which translates from Passover.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, so the Paschal full moon pretty much lands on the 14th or 15th of a lunar month. Again, research it further if you're interested. Anyhoo, all this makes Easter fall between March 22 and April 25. It falls most often on April 19th - go figger.

We gonna talk about the pagan part again now. So Easter comes from Eastre/Eostre/Oestre, which comes from an account written by the Venerable Bede, known to his contemporaries as The Dude, written in ca. 700. The common school of thought says that Eostre comes from the word for Spring. She was goddess of/for spring/fertility/dawn/birth. There were also several other gods/goddesses who had stories of virgin births/resurrections that may have been precursors to Jesus' life. Boy/that's/a/lot/of/slashes/!/

I choose to believe that any stories or myths or legends were where prophecies of Jesus had been twisted in the retelling AND listening of them. Like a horrible karmic game of Telephone. It's something I've given a lot of thought to and have come to an educated conclusion. So if have thoughts that disagree with MY thoughts of Jesus and Christianity, you can put them up your rabbit hole. Unless you can state them in a thought provoking and intelligent manner. Clear? Moving on.

What? Easter? Oh yeah, OK.
So where did all the cute bunnies laying eggs and whatnot come from? Well what comes from eggs, I mean besides platypuses (or is it platypi?)? Eggs symbolize birth. They also, along with the hare, symbolized the Norse goddess Ostara and fertility. It could also be that the rabbit is associated with the moon in ancient cultures. And I also heard that Jesus could jump pretty good, and that He sort of looked like a bunny. Not funny? I'm going to hell? In an Easter basket?

Easter lilies? looks like reproductive organs

Sunrise service? welcoming the sun god on the morning after the pagan celebration of the vernal equinox

With all silliness aside (Yes, I can do that occasionally), Easter is a celebration, in it's current Christian form, of the rebirth of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It celebrates and reminds that we, WE, have the potential for eternal life. It reminds that God cannot be overcome by mortal forces and reminds that in Jesus there is life.

I'm sure I didn't come anywhere near the depths of the origin, symbolism, or meaning of this very interesting holiday. Thanks for the suggestion Jay.

I'll leave you a quote from the oft-quoted C.S. Lewis. It's not neccessarily about Easter, but it's a good one nonetheless.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.