Easter Greeting Card Messages

In the United States, the Easter holiday has been effectively secularized. Not all individuals are religious or have the same views of the holiday. Easter is also celebrated as a non-religious holiday that is derived from Pagan customs related to the arrival of spring. American families participate in decorating Easter eggs on Saturday evening and hunting for them Sunday morning, by which time they have been mysteriously hidden all over the house and garden. According to the children's stories, the eggs were hidden overnight and other treats delivered by the Easter Bunny in an Easter basket, which children find waiting for them when they wake up. Current traditions that have evolved from these ancient customs include Easter egg hunts and bunnies.

Non-Religious Poems

Five Brown Eggs-Courtesy of Can Teach for Children
Five brown eggs in a nest of hay,
One yellow chick popped out to play.
Four brown eggs in a nest of hay,
Another yellow chick cheep-cheeped Good day.
Three brown eggs in a nest of hay,
Crack went another one, Hip hooray.
Two brown eggs in a nest of hay,
One more chick pecked his shell away.
One brown egg in a nest of hay,
The last yellow chick popped out to say,
Happy Easter Day!

A Basket Full of Love for You!

A late Easter, A long, cold Spring - French Proverb

A tisket, a tasket
Oh where's my Easter basket?
I went walking Easter morn',
And on the way I found it!
I found it! I found it!
On the way I found it!
I went walking Easter morn',
And on the way I found it!

All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! - Lucy Van Pelt in Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz

Awake, thou wintry earth-- Fling off thy sadness! Air vernal flowers; laugh forth Your ancient gladness! - Thomas Blackburn

Here comes Peter Cottontail right down the bunny trail... - Beatrice Potter

Hippity Hoppity Easter's on its Way!

Baskets & Bunnies!
Bunnies are brown
Bunnies are white
Bunnies are always
An Easter delight!

Bunnies are cuddly
The large and the small.
But I like chocolate ones
The best of them all.

Easter bunny soft and white
Hopping quickly out of sight.
Thank you for the eggs you bring
At Easter time to welcome spring.

Easter spells out beauty, the rare beauty of new life. - S.D. Gordon

Easter tells us that life is to be interpreted not simply in terms of things but in terms of ideals. - Charles M. Crowe

Easter time is full of cheer,
It means spring is really here.
Baskets, flowers and fancy hats,
Rabbits, too, remember that!
So all I really want to say
Is have a Happy Easter Day!!

Religious Poems

A Time of Love- Courtesy of Poems for Free for Children
Easter is a time of love,
A time of death and pain undone,
So we may know the power of
The love that lives in everyone.
Each love we feel, unstained and free,
Redeems us--as with you and me.

Easter is the demonstration of God that
life is essentially spiritual and timeless - Charles M. Crowe

Let the resurrection joy lift us from
loneliness and weakness and despair to
strength and beauty and happiness - Floyd W. Tomkins

The joyful news that He is risen does not change
the contemporary world. Still before us lie work,
discipline, sacrifice. But the fact of Easter gives
us the spiritual power to do the work, accept the
discipline, and make the sacrifice. - Henry Knox Sherrill

And he departed from our sight that we might
return to our heart, and there find Him. For
He departed, and behold, He is here - St. Augustine

He takes men out of time and makes them feel eternity. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. - Pope John Paul II

The word Easter is a derivative of Ishtar, or Astarte or one of other names (such as Venus) given by various cultures to their goddess of fertility. Easter is indeed of pagan origin and was originally celebrated at the spring solstice as part of the worship of a pagan goddess of fertility. This is the origin of Easter eggs and the rabbit (noted for its rapid procreation) as a symbol of that celebration.

Easter does appear in the Bible Act 12:1-5,
1Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church.
2And he killed James the brother of John with the sword.
3And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.)
4And 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.
5Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.

Besides being the fundamental argument for our Christian belief, the Resurrection is important for the following reasons:
It shows the justice of God who exalted Christ to a life of glory, as Christ had humbled Himself unto death-Philippians 2:8-9,
8And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death-
even death on a cross!
9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,...

The Resurrection completed the mystery of our salvation and redemption; by His death Christ freed us from sin, and by His Resurrection He restored to us the most important privileges lost by sin-Romans 4:25,
25He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

By His Resurrection we acknowledge Christ as the immortal God, the efficient and exemplary cause of our own Resurrection. Resurrection -clearly, it is referring to a physical resurrection that would not allow Christ's body to remain in the grave and see corruption. -1 Corinthians 15:21,
21For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.

Philippians 3:20-21,
20But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

...and as the model and the support of our new life of grace-Romans 6:4-6,
4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-

Christ was the first to rise unto life immortal; those rose before Him died again. The Lord Jesus Christ was not to undergo decay after death. -Colossians 1:18,
18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

1 Corinthians 15:20,
20But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Maas, A. (1911). Resurrection of Jesus Christ. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved March 2, 2009 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12789a.htm