What's So Sacred About Easter? Every year, millions of Christians observe Easter to memoralize the ressurection of Jesus Christ. The Easter service - considered the most sacred observance of the year - focuses the Christian community on the miracle of His ressurection much like Christian focuses it on His birth. But on a day that is considered so sacred, people worship with bunny rabbits, hot cross buns and colored eggs. What do these things have to do with worshipping Jesus Christ or commemorating His ressurection? By studying the origins of Easter and the scriptures related to it, we can find God’s instruction on Easter Observance. The Origins of Easter: Notice this frank admission from the Catholic Encyclopedia’s article on Easter: "Easter is also the oldest feast of the Christianity, the connecting link between the Old and New Testaments. That the apostolic fathers do not mention it and that we first hear of it principally through the Controversy of the Quartodecimans are purely accidental". That’s right: The word Easter is never even mentioned in the bible. Although "Easter" is found once in the King James translation, scholars today agree that the Greek word translated "Easter" (pascha) in Acts 12:4 should be translated "Passover". In order to really understand why Christians observe an Easter sunrise service, we need to know where it came from. "The English term (Easter) relates to Estre, a Teutonic goddess of the rising light of day and spring". The Babylonian name for this goddess was Ishtar. The phoenician name was Astarte, the wife of the sun god, Baal, the worship of whom is continually denounced in the Bible as the most abominable of all pagan idolatry (1 Kings 22:35; Jer 32:35). This goddess is actually ancient Semiramis, the mother and the wife of Nimrod, the mighty warrior who rebelled against God (Gen 10:8-9). They were the founders and inspiration behind the pagan religion of ancient Babylon. Since she claimed to be the wife of the "sun god", Semiramis became widely known as the "queen of heaven". That brings us to the first scripture relating to Easter observance: "Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the street of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the father kindle fire, and the woman knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger Is it I whom they provoke? says the Lord" - Jer 7:17-19. This observance is about worshipping the queen of heaven! The other relevant scripture is found in Ezekiel: "And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord; and behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men, with their backs to the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east, worshipping the sun toward the east. Then he said to me, 'Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it too slight a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit here, that they should fill the land with violence, and provoke me further to anger?'" (Ezekiel 8:16-17)

April 2004 Though this scripture refers to a time centuries before Christ, a little research shows that this is the identical thing that millions of Christians do every Easter Sunday today - stand with their faces toward east, as the sun is rising, in a service of worship. This practice traces its origin back to the worship of the Babylonian sun god and his mythical wife, the true godess of Easter. It has nothing to do with Christ!! Pagan Traditions: So how do colored effs and hot cross buns fit into this pagan festival adopted by the Catholic church? Dyed Easter eggs figured in the ancient Babylonian mystery rites. They were sacred to many ancient civilizations. The mystic egg of Babylon, hatching the Venus Ishtar, fell from heaven to the Euphrates. Dyed eggs were sacred Easter offerings in Egypt, as they are still in China and Europe. Easter or spring, was the season of birth, terrestrial and celestial. The egg became one of the symbol of Astarte or Easter. Though many consider this use of Easter eggs child’s play in modern times, its origin are pagan. Hot cross buns, tied directly to the Easter season today, also have pagan origins. “These cakes which are now solely associated with the Christian Good Friday, are traceable to the remotest period of pagan history. Cakes were offered by ancient Egyptians to their moon-goddess. The Greeks offered such sacred cakes to Astarte and other divinities. In time the Greeks marked these cakes with a cross, possibly an allusion to the four quarters of the moon, or more probably to facilitate the distribution of the sacred bread which was eaten by the worshippers. Few have ever realized the facts of where these practices originated. In the medieval church, buns made from the dough for the consecrated host were distributed to the communicants after mass on Easter Sunday. In England, there seems to have early been a disposition on the part of the bakers to imitate the church, and they did a good trade in buns and cakes stamped with cross, for as far as back as 1252 the practice was forbidden by royal proclamation; but this seems to have had little effect. With the rise of Protestantism the cross bun lost its sacrosant nature, and became a mere eatable associated for no particular reason with Good Friday. Christ’s Command: It is simple matter to prove that Easter and the custom surrounding it are of pagan origin. Observing that holiday can provoke God to anger (Ezekiel 8:17). Since we can see what God does not want us to observe, what does the Bible say we should commemorate at this time of year? The apostle Paul wrote about Jesus Christ’s command to the disciples just before His death: “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus Christ the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same maner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as of as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come” - 1 Cor 11:23-26. God requires all true believers to commemorate His death, not other things.