WHY CELEBRATE EASTER?
"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." - Ephesians 5:11
Easter is a day that is honored by all professed Christian churches and is generally understood to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The holiday often involves a church service at sunrise, Lenten season, a feast which includes an "Easter Ham", decorated eggs and stories about rabbits.
However, have you ever thought of the origin of the word "Easter"? What does the Bible say about this? Does the Bible say you should celebrate it? The King James Bible states the following:
- Acts 12:1-4 "Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread) And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people."
Remember that Herod was a Roman king and all Romans were pagans, and they still celebrate Easter. The verses describe Herod's intention to keep Peter until "after Easter" to be publicly killed. Easter was never a Jewish or Christian festival and has nothing to do with the death and resurrection of Jesus. So the Bible does not endorse Easter for it is and always was a Pagan festival that comes about on the first full moon of Spring, the following Sunday will be Easter, and the true Christians will never celebrate it.
You will also notice that there is a strong possibility that the word "Easter" is a mistranslation considering the word in Greek is "pascha" according to Strong's which means:
"the Passover (the meal, the day, the festival or the special sacrifices connected with it): --Easter, Passover." Strong's G3957
The Catholic Church stated the following when you observe "Easter":
"Practically everything Protestants regard as essential or important they have received from the Catholic Church... The Protestant mind does not seem to realize that in accepting the Bible and observing the Sunday, in keeping Christmas and Easter, they are accepting the authority of the spokesman for the church, the Pope." - Our Sunday Visitor (February 5, 1950):
By observing Sunday and keeping Christmas and Easter, you are accepting the authority of the Pope regardless of your religious denomination.
Those who love truth learn to ask questions, and many must be asked regarding the holiday of Easter. Is it truly the day when Jesus arose from the dead? Where did all of the strange customs come from, which have nothing to do with the resurrection of our Saviour?
The first thing we must understand is that professing Christians are not the only ones who celebrated a festival called "Easter."
The origin of Easter
"The English word Easter and the German Ostern come from a common origin (Eostur, Eastur, Ostara, Ostar), which to the Norsemen meant the season of the rising (growing) sun, the season of new birth. The word was used by our ancestors to designate the Feast of New Life in the spring. The same root is found in the name for the place where the sun rises (East, Ost). The word Easter, then, originally meant the celebration of the spring sun, which had its birth in the East and brought new life upon earth. This symbolism was transferred to the supernatural meaning of our Easter, to the new life of the Risen Christ, the eternal and uncreated Light. Based on a passage in the writings of Saint Bede the Venerable (735), the term Easter has often been explained as the name of an Anglo-Saxon goddess (Eostre), though no such goddess is known in the mythologies of any Germanic tribe. Modern research has made it quite clear that Saint Bede erroneously interpreted the name of the season as that of a goddess." - Francis X. Weiser, Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1958), p. 211. Copyright 1952 by Francis X. Weiser.
"The word Easter, which comes from the Anglo-Saxon, is a term derived from the pagan goddess of the dawn." - The Catholic Encyclopedia, Revised and Updated, Copyright 1987, Robert C. Broderick, Editor, Thomas Nelson Publishers, page 177.
"What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears the Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people of Ninevah, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments is Ishtar." The Two Babylons, by the Rev. Alexander Hislop, published 1943 and 1959 in the U.S. by Loizeaux Brothers, Neptune, New Jersey, page 103.
According to Jeremiah, Israel and Judah committed idolatry by worshipping the "queen of heaven."
- Jeremiah 7:18-19 "The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. 19 Do they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?"
- Jeremiah 44:19 "And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?"
"Ishtar", which is pronounced "Easter" was a day that commemorated the resurrection of one of their gods that they called "Tammuz", who was believed to be the only begotten son of the moon-goddess and the sun-god. In those ancient times, there was a man named Nimrod, who was the grandson of one of Noah's son named Ham. Ham had a son named Cush who married a woman named Semiramis. Cush and Semiramis then had a son named him "Nimrod."
After the death of his father, Nimrod married his own mother and became a powerful King.
The Bible tells of this man, Nimrod, in Genesis 10:8-10 as follows:
- "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad,and Calneh, in the land of Shinar."
Nimrod became a god-man to the people and Semiramis (Ishtar), his wife and mother, became the powerful Queen of ancient Babylon.
That missing part was his reproductive organ. Semiramis claimed that Nimrod could not come back to life without it and told the people of Babylon that Nimrod had ascended to the sun and was now to be called "Baal", the sun god.
Queen Semiramis also proclaimed that Baal would be present on earth in the form of a flame, whether candle or lamp, when used in worship. Semiramis was creating a mystery religion, and with the help of Satan, she set herself up as a goddess.
To proclaim her divine authority, she allegedly changed a bird into an egg laying rabbit. As the cult developed, the priests of Ishtar would impregnate young virgins on the altar of the goddess of fertility at sunrise on Ishtar Sunday. A year later the priests of Easter would sacrifice those three-month-old babies on the altar at the front of the Sanctuary and dye Ishtar eggs in the blood of the sacrificed infants.
Semiramis claimed that she was immaculately conceived. She taught that the moon was a goddess that went through a 28 day cycle and ovulated when full. She further claimed that she came down from the moon in a giant moon egg that fell into the Euphrates River. This was to have happened at the time of the first full moon after the spring equinox.
Semiramis became known as "Ishtar" which is pronounced "Easter", and her moon egg became known as "Ishtar's" egg."
Pagan traditions associated with the egg:
“The egg as a symbol of fertility and of renewed life goes back to the ancient Egyptians and Persians, who had also the custom of colouring and eating eggs during their spring festival.” - Encyclopedia Britannica.
In ancient Egypt, an egg symbolised the sun, while for the Babylonians, the egg represents the hatching of the Venus Ishtar, who fell from heaven to the Euphrates.
Ishtar soon became pregnant and claimed that it was the rays of the sun-god Baal that caused her to conceive. The son that she brought forth was named Tammuz.
Tammuz was noted to be especially fond of rabbits, and they became sacred in the ancient religion, because Tammuz was believed to be the son of the sun-god, Baal.
Tammuz, like his supposed father, became a hunter. The day came when Tammuz was killed by a wild pig.
Queen Ishtar told the people that Tammuz was now ascended to his father, Baal, and that the two of them would be with the worshippers in the sacred candle or lamp flame as Father, Son and Spirit.
Ishtar, who was now worshipped as the "Mother of God and Queen of Heaven", continued to build her mystery religion. The queen told the worshippers that when Tammuz was killed by the wild pig, some of his blood fell on the stump of an evergreen tree, and the stump grew into a full new tree overnight.
This made the evergreen tree sacred by the blood of Tammuz. She also proclaimed a forty day period of time of sorrow each year prior to the anniversary of the death of Tammuz. During this time, no meat was to be eaten.
Worshippers were to meditate upon the sacred mysteries of Baal and Tammuz, and to make the sign of the "T" in front of their hearts as they worshipped.
They also ate sacred cakes with the marking of a "T" or cross on the top. Every year, on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, a celebration was made.
It was Ishtar's Sunday and was celebrated with rabbits and eggs. Ishtar also proclaimed that because Tammuz was killed by a pig, that a pig must be eaten on that Sunday.
By now, you should have made the connection that paganism has infiltrated the contemporary "Christian" churches, and further study indicates that this paganism came in by way of the Roman Catholic System.
PASCHALE GAUDIUM.
Now, the Church uses three names to designate the Easter day and season; one an English name, one a Latin name, and one a Hebrew name—Easter, Resurrectio, Phase. Some have never thought it worth while to inquire why this season is called Easter-tide.
Just add the letter "N" to the word, make it "Eastern ," and we have the solution. Some, indeed, derive from "Eastre" the Goddess of Dawn; this season being dedicated to that goddess in pagan, Anglo-Saxon days. But these have only pursued the inquiry half-way. Why was the Goddess of Dawn called Eastre? Because the dawn of day is in the East—Morgenland—as the musical, mystical Germans call it—morningland.
The Church took the pagan philosophy and made it the buckler of faith against the heathen. She took the pagan Roman Pantheon, temple of all the gods, and made it sacred to all the martyrs; so it stands to this day. She took the pagan Sunday and made it the Christian Sunday. She took the pagan Easter and made it the feast we celebrate during this season.
Sunday and Easter day are, if we consider their derivation, much the same. In truth, all Sundays are Sundays only because they are a weekly, partial recurrence of Easter day. The pagan Sunday was, in a manner, an unconscious preparation for Easter day. The Sun was a foremost god with heathendom. Balder the Beautiful, the White God, the old Scandinavians called him. The Sun has worshipers at this hour in Persia and other lands. ... There is, in truth, something royal, kingly about the Sun, making it a fit emblem of Jesus, the Sun of Justice. Hence, the Church, in these countries, would seem to have said, "Keep that old pagan name. It shall remain consecrated, sanctified." And thus, the pagan Sunday, dedicated to Balder, became the Christian Sunday, sacred to Jesus. The Sun is a fitting emblem of Jesus. The Fathers often compared Jesus to the Sun; as they compared Mary to the Moon, the beautiful Moon, the beautiful Mary, shedding her mild, beneficent light on the darkness and night of this world—not light of her own; no Catholic says this; but—light reflected from the Sun, Jesus." - The Rev. William L. Gildea, D. D., THE CATHOLIC WORLD, Vol. LVIII (58), Oct., 1893 to Mar., 1894, pgs. 808-813.
The truth is that Easter has nothing whatsoever to do with the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The true Passover and pagan Easter sometimes coincide, but in some years, they can be three weeks apart because the pagan holiday is always set as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.
date of Easter 1170
1170 At the Council of Nicaea in 325, all the Churches agreed that Easter, the Christian Passover, should be celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon (14 Nisan) after the vernal equinox. Because of the different methods of calculating the 14th day of the month of Nisan, the date of Easter in the Western and Eastern Churches is not always the same. For this reason, the Churches are currently seeking an agreement in order once again to celebrate the day of the Lord's Resurrection on a common date." www.vatican.va
The truth is that the forty days of Lent, eggs, rabbits, hot cross buns and the Easter ham have everything to do with the ancient pagan religion of Mystery Babylon. These are all anti-Christ activities!
Satan is a master deceiver, and has filled the lives of wellmeaning, professing Christians with idolatry.
These things bring the wrath of God upon children of disobedience, who try to make pagan customs of Baal worship Christian. You must answer for your activities and for what you teach your children.
These customs of Easter honor Baal, who is also Satan, and is still worshiped as the "Rising Sun" and his house is the "House of the Rising Sun."
How many churches have "sunrise services" on Ishtar's day and face the rising sun in the East? In fact, even the apostate SDA church joined hand in hand with the Babylonian churches in celebrating this pagan holiday.
How many will use colored eggs and rabbit stories, as they did in ancient Babylon.
These recorded facts are no joke, any more than the coming Judgment day is a joke. I pray to God that this page will cause you to search for more truth.
Because the papacy has paganized true Christianity so deeply and completely under Satan’s leadership, modern day “believers” are generally unaware of the origins of the what, why, when, and how of what they actually believe today.
None of this is speculation, it is well documented, though people remain ‘convinced’ that their “traditions” are facts and unaware of the deceptions that have taken over this world to turn your eyes from our Creator, while in reality, you deny Him to follow false doctrine.
It is written,
"How long halt ye between two opinions?
if the LORD be God, follow him:
but if Baal, then follow him..."
-1 Kings 18:21
These are the last days, and it is time to repent, come out and be separate. I hope and pray that you are blessed with this study.
For more in-depth study please click here.
