(FinalCall.com) - As I pondered, as I often do, over what would be of interest to our readers at this particular time, I was going through my mail and up popped a magazine which I take, with the answer. The magazine is THE PHILADELPHIA TRUMPET, and above the name were listed three featured articles, one of which was entitled "THE EASTER MYSTERY–Colored Eggs and Christ?"
I turned to the page, in the middle of which was a picture of some colored eggs, with the title printed over them, "WHAT’S SO SACRED ABOUT EASTER?" It begins:
"The Easter Service–considered the most sacred observance of the year––focuses the Christian community on the miracle of His resurrection much like Christmas 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 worshiping Jesus Christ or commemorating His resur-rection? Moreover, why didn’t anyone observe Easter in the Bible?"
Calling it "The oldest feast of the Christian Church," the writers notice that "... the apostolic fathers do not mention it" and that when we first heard of it, principally through the Controversy of the Quartodecimans, is 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.’" 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 (I Kings 22:53; Jer. 32:35).
"This goddess is actually ancient Semiramis, the mother and wife of Nimrod, the mighty warrior who rebelled against God (Gen. 10:8-9).
"A controversy calling for the annual Sunday observance of ‘Easter’ continues for almost 200 years, until Easter was officially adopted by the church at Rome at the time of Constantine in A.D. 325.
"At the time of Jesus Christ and the apostles, no one had ever kept Lent–the 40 days of abstinence preceding Easter. Much like Easter, it has pagan origins: It was "directly borrowed from the worshipers of the Babylonian goddess," says Alexander Hislop in his book "THE TWO BABYLONS." "Such a Lent of 40 days, in the Spring of the year, is still observed by the Yezidis or pagan devil worshipers of Kurdistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians."
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