YEA Lesson Library

The Lesson

While driving in the city on a four or six-lane street, have you ever noticed how there is often a much longer line in one or two lanes and one lane is virtually traffic free? The conclusion l've come to is people are like sheep and follow the car in front of them, even though there is a better way available. The "sheep" instinct in humans seems to be strong. It seems to carry over into people's religion. All too often we follow rather than think, analyze, and choose the right course. This seems to be true with the days that are generally celebrated by Christians.

Easter is one of those days to which Christian churches have attached significance and celebrate with nostalgia and assumed meaning--albeit the meaning is wrongly placed. Too many find it easier to be a sheep and follow than to search the Bible to see what it really says. Are you a sheep, or do you dare learn the truth?

Christendom places the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday. To them, it is perhaps the most holy of all days celebrated. But how did Christian churches come to believe and teach that Christ was resurrected on Easter Sunday morning? Getting up in the wee hours of the morning to attend an Easter Sunrise Service is done to deepen the experience. Those who do this are usually devout in their beliefs. But is their devotion misplaced? Is this what God would have you do? Is Easter a day God would have His people celebrate?

Try this little test on one of your friends who celebrates Easter. Ask him what Easter means. You're likely to hear that it means the "resurrection of Christ." For about 1600 years, Christian churches have taught that Christ rose from the dead on Easter Sunday morning. But did He? We'll discuss that later. First let's understand the meaning of Easter. You will find the derivation in Webster’s dictionary: "AS. (Anglo-Saxon), from name of old Teuton goddess of spring.”

Your Christian friends will likely tell you that Easter is in the Bible. That is true. But it is mentioned only once in the King James translation, in Acts 12:4, and the word "Easter" should have been translated "Pascha" or "Passover" as the Revised Version correctly has it.

Easter, this ancient pagan goddess of spring, had different names. In Babylon she was called Astarte, and Ishtar in Nineveh (Layard's Nineveh and Babylon). Baal was the Sun-god in Chaldean idolatrous worship. His wife or consort was Astarte.

"The festival, of which we read in church history, under the name of Easter, in the third or fourth centuries, was quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish (and Protestant) church, and at that time was not known by any such name as Easter. It was called Passover, and was very early observed by Christians... That festival agreed originally with the time of the Jewish Passover, when Christ was crucified. That festival was not idolatrous, and was preceded by no lent" so says Hislop in The Two Babylons.

That brings us to another question. What is Lent? Is it commanded of God? What are its connections to Easter? Did Jesus observe Lent? No! How did the observance of Lent start? This 40-day period of abstinence begins with Ash Wednesday and continues to Easter. It was directly borrowed from Babylonian goddess worshipers. Ask friends who observe Lent what they gave up. Often it is something trivial such as chewing gum, popcorn, or watching a particular TV show. Do you think it impresses God for a person to give up something so minor for 40 days, that's not essential to life and may seldom be eaten or used by many people? Is that what the Bible says God is looking for in a person? "For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD, but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word" (Isaiah 66:2). This is what's important to God.

So how did Easter, a pagan festival, become a part of Christian worship? The 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica says: "There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament or in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. . . The first Christians continued to observe the Jewish Festivals though in a new spirit, as commemorations of events which those festivals had foreshadowed. Thus the Passover, with a new conception added to it, of Christ as the true Paschal Lamb and the first fruits from the dead, continued to be observed."

Hislop says: "Only by violence and bloodshed the idolatrous festival of the Chaldean goddess Easter came to supersede what God ordained in the Passover to be observed forever!"

Was Jesus crucified on Good Friday and resurrected on Easter Sunday, as nearly every Christian believes? Hidden in your memory verse is a problem for those who believe this. Jesus said he would be in the grave three days and three nights. That's 72 hours. Friday night, Saturday, and Saturday night to Sunday morning come to half that time--only 36 hours. Yet Jesus said the only proof of His Messiahship was the length of time He would be in the grave. The answer lies in putting together such Scriptures as Mark 15:37-43; Luke 23:50-54 and John 19:28-31. Belief in a Friday crucifixion and a Sunday resurrection overlooks that holy days are also Sabbaths. This assumes that when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus rushed to get Jesus in the tomb because the Sabbath was coming, that the Sabbath was a Saturday. But it was a Thursday - the first Day of Unleavened Bread. If you count Wednesday night (days began at sunset), Thursday, Thursday night, Friday, Friday night, Saturday to sunset, you will have three days and three nights as Jesus said. A Good Friday crucifixion and Easter Sunday resurrection won't work. Easter does not teach the message of Christ. The Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread do!