Easter: A Celebration of Life Where Pagans and Christians Meet

Centuries ago, spring was seen as the return of an easier life after cold and often hungry winters when survival was uppermost on the common man's mind. Spring - the season of Easter - meant the return of warmth and food from the earth, so it followed that a celebration of new and abundant life was an important ritual.

Many rituals included several "virgin birth" myths and worship of a goddess of fertility. Stories of god-men who died and were resurrected each spring predate the Easter story of Jesus Christ by several centuries.

In Ireland, there is a passage tomb designed so that the dawning of both spring and summer equinoxes lights a particular corridor and falls on a stone which is decorated with astronomical symbols.

Ancient Mayans built a pyramid in what is now central Mexico, upon which shadows near sunset on the spring equinox give the impression of a diamond-backed rattlesnake coming down the walls," aptly called "The Return of the Sun Serpent." This welcomes and celebrates the warmth and nearness of the Sun and the return of the good life.

In Judaism, the Passover is a feast of the spring time. A celebration and remembrance of when God brought the children of Israel out from slavery in Egypt, the Passover commemorates the favor of God when He passed over the Israelite households, instead visiting households of Egypt with the "angel of death." The Passover is thus a celebration of life.

The Festival of Eostre, or Ostara, the Anglo-Saxon and/or Germanic goddess of spring and fertility, was celebrated at the vernal equinox (first day of spring).

Enter, the Easter egg: Wherever and however the myth began, it states that Eostre found an injured bird in the winter time and wanted to save its life. She changed the bird to a hare, however, her magical powers didn't quite do the job and the hare continued to lay eggs like a bird. The hare/bird would then decorate these eggs and leave them as gifts to the goddess.

The tale hasn't evolved much from that to our modern Easter egg delivering, hippety hopping happy Easter bunny, except that he now delivers to boys and girls instead of goddesses. Following legend, each spring, eggs were gathered and colored by boiling them with flowers or plants, or, for the rich, wrapped in gold leaf. It's not too far a leap to see our modern practices in this.

It was from Judaism's Passover, however, that the commonly accepted Christian concept of Easter grew. Christ was the essential and final Passover Lamb who fulfilled the requirements once and for all that God had set forth on how to celebrate Passover.

Since Christ was crucified during Passover and ressurrected three days after, it was a small jump from the Passover celebration to the celebration of Christ's resurrection, although there is no record of celebrating Easter by the early Christians until the second century.

Christians properly "took over" the celebration at the Nicean Council in the third century, when it was decided that the day would be set as the first Sunday after Passover. Other calendars and other manipulations have changed the date slightly over the centuries, but even now, Pagans and Christians alike celebrate a renewal of life itself.