If we’re honest, most of us have spent at least one Easter wondering just what hard-boiled eggs and jellybeans have to do with Jesus. And most of us, if we’re truthful, have also wondered how to get three days and three nights between Good Friday and Easter Sunday morning.
I know I know – It’s easy to say, “God works in mysterious ways.” But the God we worship is the only “wise” God, and therefore, there ought to be some wisdom applied to what most of us have been afraid to even question.
The word “Easter” appears only once in Scripture (Acts 12:4), and even then, it’s translated from a Hebrew word for Passover. Easter and Passover have become one in the same. But how did we get to the place where chocolate bunnies and marshmallow peeps become the symbols of the Resurrection?
Passover is the foundation of why we celebrate Easter. It was first instituted at the time when Moses led the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Pharaoh had refused time and again to let God’s people go, and God released 10 plagues upon Egypt to persuade the king. The last of the 10 plagues would be the death of all the firstborn in the land.
To protect God’s own people from this plague that would have affected them as well, God forewarned Israel to perform the ritual now known as Passover. They were to select a lamb from their flock which was without spot or blemish; in the ancient world animal sacrifice had become a method of honoring God. They were to slay the lamb and smear its blood over the doorposts of their homes. So, when the death angel came through the land, the Bible teaches, it would see the blood of the lamb and “pass over” the homes of the obedient, sparing their firstborn.
Perhaps you need to read that again: the death angel would “pass over” those who had been obedient to God’s instructions. Not only were Jewish lives saved, but God also instructed them to commemorate the event and teach it to their children forever.
Which brings us to Easter.
The word Easter is derived from a Semitic word Ashtoreth, which describes an ancient goddess of fertility and war. Phoenicians referred to this same goddess as Astarte, but the Babylonians and Assyrians referred to her as Isthar (ee-star). Ishtar described this same ancient goddess associated with fertility.
Springtime (the time of Passover and Easter) is a time of fertility. The days become longer, and new life erupts throughout nature. Those who worshipped the goddess Ishtar were worshipping this celebration of springtime. Fertility for them was expressed in the use of eggs, which are symbolic of birth; and bunnies who reproduce more rapidly than other mammals. This is the origin of the word Easter. It has little to do with Resurrection.
Over the centuries fertility rituals and Passover have become syncretized in our culture. Now, we can barely tell where Passover begins and a celebration of springtime ends.
But Jesus Christ is our Passover. He was without spot or blemish.
“For (God) hath made (Christ) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
His shed blood on the cross is spread over the doors to our hearts when we believe on Him, and spiritually the death angel “passes over,” us and we have life eternal.
When we celebrate Easter, we celebrate God’s saving grace. God, through Christ, has delivered us out of slavery to sin and the death that accompanies it.
Jesus had to be offered up on the same day as the Passover Lamb, for He was the Lamb of God. He had to be offered up on the same day because His blood was shed for our inherited offenses. Just as the blood of the Passover Lamb spared the children of Israel from physical death, so too does the blood of the Lamb save us from eternal death.
This is why the hymn writer can sing, “I know it was the blood.” And now, you can sing that, too.
