According to some sources, the Easter bunny first arrived in America in the 1700s with German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania and transported their tradition of an egg-laying hare called “Osterhase” or “Oschter Haws.” Their children made nests in which this creature could lay its colored eggs .
Easter is a Christian holiday that celebrates the belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Easter , also called Pascha (Aramaic, Greek, Latin) or Resurrection Sunday, is a festival and holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in the New Testament as having occurred on the third day after his burial following his crucifixion by the Romans at Calvary c. 30 AD.
Bunnies are a leftover from the pagan festival of Eostre, a great northern goddess whose symbol was a rabbit or hare. Easter is essentially a pagan festival which is celebrated with cards, gifts and novelty Easter products, because it’s fun and the ancient symbolism still works.
But if you’re looking for the technical, less touchy feely answer to is the Easter Bunny real , well then, no. The Easter Bunny is a figure from folklore and a symbol of Easter . And, by the way, the German Lutheran tradition from which we took the Easter Bunny is not all hidden eggs and chocolates.
Why do we hide eggs at Easter ? In many pre-Christian societies eggs held associations with spring and new life. Early Christians adapted these beliefs, making the egg a symbol of the resurrection and the empty shell a metaphor for Jesus’ tomb. The men would hide the eggs for the women and children to find.
Easter is the most important festival in the Christian calendar. It celebrates God raising his son Jesus from the dead as well as the destruction of the power of sin and death forever. It symbolises the opening of Heaven with the gift of eternal life to everyone.
Dates for Eastertide from 2016 to 2026
Year | Eastertide starts on | Eastertide ends on |
---|---|---|
Eastertide 2018 | Sunday, April 1, 2018 | Sunday, May 20, 2018 |
Eastertide 2019 | Sunday, April 21, 2019 | Sunday, June 9, 2019 |
Eastertide 2020 | Sunday, April 12, 2020 | Sunday, May 31, 2020 |
Eastertide 2021 | Sunday, April 4, 2021 | Sunday, May 23, 2021 |
Easter is Not Mentioned in the Bible Another problem concerning the celebration of Easter is the fact that it is not in the Bible . The word “ Easter ” (or its equivalents) appear in the Bible only once in Acts 12:4. When taken into context, however, the use of the word “ Easter ” in this verse refers only to the Passover.
We know that Easter Sunday is celebrated because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead thus proving His claim to be the Son of God . During His earthly ministry, He often claimed that He was God in the flesh and that He would be killed but would rise from the dead three days later.
“ Easter is a very old word . Another theory is that the English word Easter comes from an older German word for east, which comes from an even older Latin word for dawn. In spring, dawns mark the beginning of days that will outlast the nights, and those dawns erupt in the east. So that tale is tidy, too.
Many Christians celebrate Easter Sunday as the day of Jesus Christ’s resurrection , which is written in the New Testament of the Christian bible. According to the Gospel of John in the New Testament, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb where Jesus was buried and found it empty. An angel told her that Jesus had risen.
Easter’s name – The name Easter is never associated with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in the original Scriptures and is actually derived from the word “Eostre.” Eostre was Queen Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod, Noah’s evil but enterprising great grandson (Genesis 10:6-8).
Easter first started out as a celebration of the Spring Equinox: a time when all of nature is awakened from the slumber of winter and the cycle of renewal begins. Anglo-Saxon pagans celebrated this time of rebirth by invoking Ēostre or Ostara, the goddess of spring, the dawn, and fertility.
The Bible makes no mention of a long-eared, short-tailed creature who delivers decorated eggs to well-behaved children on Easter Sunday; nevertheless, the Easter bunny has become a prominent symbol of Christianity’s most important holiday.