For follow-up discussion and general commentary on the topic. Comments are sorted chronologically.
John Royer
I think it is very much like Christmas and the Pagen holiday Saturnalia.
Martin Luther, is to be the very first person to bring a Christmas tree into his house?
pj edelman
I understand, what you are saying, but I am not sure how your response really answers the question. Perhaps you could explain to the questioner the relationship between the pagan rituals and that bunny and those eggs. I' m just sayin... :-)
Vincent Mercado
Oh I didn't know Martin Luther invented the Christmas tree.
Jennifer Rothnie
Evergreen trees in combination with the Winter Solstice were around long before Martin Luther, as far back as Babylon, and some cultures had logs or branches that they brought into the house. There is a legendary story that Martin Luther in the 1500s was the first to bring a tree into his home and decorate it, but there is no history behind this legend. However, 'Christmas Trees' as we see them now did originate in Germany, the first recorded being in 1521.
""the Christmas or fir tree, which people set up in their houses, hang with dolls and sweets, and afterwards shake and deflower. . . Whence comes this custom I know not; it is child's play . . . Far better were it to point the children to the spiritual cedar-tree, Jesus Christ." - Johann Dannhauer, 'The Milk of the Catechism', 1650.
However as PJ mentioned this current topic is on Easter, not Christmas.
These eBible topics cover Christmas:
https://ebible.com/questions/3552-should-we-have-a-christmas-tree-does-the-christmas-tree-have-its-origin-in-ancient-pagan-rituals
https://ebible.com/questions/2652-should-christians-celebrate-christmas
https://ebible.com/questions/3555-how-should-christians-respond-to-the-war-on-christmas
https://ebible.com/questions/3551-do-some-christmas-traditions-have-pagan-origins
https://ebible.com/questions/5290-where-is-the-christmas-story-in-the-bible
COLIN WOO
The Chinese Church refers to Good Friday as Day of Suffering and the immediate Sunday as Resurrection Sunday. I hope the Church of Christ Jesus all over the earth should immediately stop making any reference to this holy event as Easter. Perhaps we should call this glorious event, "Christ Victory" and all Christians all over should now declare and commemorate this event as such and celebrate unabashedly.
James Kraft
To me this is liken to eating meat offered to idols. I doubt if most christians know how these pagan holidays originated, and therefore it would not be a sin to them. Knowing what you do now it may be a sin to you and you should not celebrate Easter at all. What may be a sin to one person may not be a sin to another. Romans 14.
We are not to judge other Christians in doubtful things. Where there are no hard and fast rules we are not to obey the doctrines of men. But, if the Lord asks you to give up something, then we should obey. He has a right to take from us what ever He wants at anytime, even to our own lives. Just make sure it is from Him.
Meagon Gaspar
I found this thread because of feeling that I should further check into more about the traditions associated with Easter. I have been wondering about it for some time, and it troubles me that a bunny, which was an animal that was deemed unclean in the Old Testament, is one of the first things that comes to mind for most people when they think of the commercialized aspect of things. And it is even more troublesome to me that the bunny supposedly has eggs that would be considered to be unclean. There is so much emphasis on consuming eggs, and it seems ironic that there are deviled eggs also.These things have been troubling me for some time, but through some of the comments I believe I have further confirmation of what I believe that I was being told about things.
Jennifer Rothnie
They'd only be unclean if they actually were laid by a bunny. Chicken eggs are kosher (so long as they don't have blood spots in them.)
"Deviled" in deviled eggs has nothing to do with the devil, either, save accidental spelling similarity in English. "Devil" is also a culinary term to highly season a dish, such as to mix food with mustard or hot or spicy seasonings like red pepper or tobasco.The end result is a "deviled dish."
Nothing related to Satan, though one can always call them stuffed eggs or the like.
That said, there are certainly a lot of secular and pagan traditions mixed up to create 'Easter.' Decorated eggs a tradition far preceding Christianity, coming from Persian (especially Zoastrian) tradition. The symbolism is broad - light vs. dark, fertility, growth, hope, etc.
Here Passover itself has a rich history as appointed by God in scripture and pointing us to Christ, and so the NT meaning in Christ would have ample symbolism (and more accurate symbolism) to be celebrated by the church.
Instead, some in the church over the centuries did what they could to stamp celebration of the Passover out by Christians, first by enforcing the Resurrection be celebrated on Sunday rather than Passover by the end of the quartodecimen controversy, and then later moving the celebration to the Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox NOT Passover - even calling those who still calculated from Passover heretics.