Why Easter seems less celebrated than Christmas ?

[Dkh587]

If you think good honest Christians are worshipping Ishtar and having pagan orgies because of a few colored eggs and a fictitious rabbit, then you have MUCH BIGGER problems than calling Yom ha Bikkurim “Easter.”

They aren’t consciously worshipping Ishtar, but they are ignorantly celebrating a pagan holiday rooted in Ishtar that they think is rooted in Christ.

And then of course, there are those that have been told and warned that Easter is pagan, and still continue on celebrating it in error.

Celebrating Easter is not in line with the Scriptures.

 

[Strong in Him]

They aren’t consciously worshipping Ishtar, but they are ignorantly celebrating a pagan holiday rooted in Ishtar that they think is rooted in Christ.

The passion, death and resurrection of Jesus IS rooted in Christ; it's why he came to earth and is the cornerstone of our faith.
Easter is not a particular holiday. The dates vary from year to year; it can be in early March or late April (as this year.)

Celebrating the resurrection is in line with Scripture.

 

[Dkh587]

The passion, death and resurrection of Jesus IS rooted in Christ; it's why he came to earth and is the cornerstone of our faith.
Easter is not a particular holiday. The dates vary from year to year; it can be in early March or late April (as this year.)

Celebrating the resurrection is in line with Scripture.

Easter and the resurrection of the Messiah are 2 different things.

The resurrection of the Messiah is in line with scripture, but celebrating a pagan holiday such as Easter is not in line with scripture.

 

[Strong in Him]

Easter and the resurrection of the Messiah are 2 different things.

Not to me, they're not.
Easter Sunday is resurrection day. Celebrated on a particular day at a particular time of the year, but can be, and probably is, celebrated by every Christian every day.
Easter Sunday gives a golden opportunity to tell people what it is really all about - share the Gospel story, give Gospel tracts with Easter eggs. The world will find other occasions to eat chocolate for us, Christ has risen.

The resurrection of the Messiah is in line with scripture, but celebrating a pagan holiday such as Easter is not in line with scripture.

It's only a pagan holiday if you make it a pagan holiday.
The days of the weeks and months of the year are named after Greek, or Roman, gods, and are not recorded in Scripture - are they all pagan too? Should we not celebrate anything ever because it may have happened on a "pagan" day and not be laid down in Scripture?
You celebrate Easter, or not, as you wish. As I said, Easter Sunday gives us the perfect opportunity to share the Gospel with the world. Christians should all be coming together and shouting it from the rooftops, but what do we find instead; Christians arguing that this sacred, joyful feast day is pagan and shouldn't be observed.

The devil must be so happy.

 

[FireDragon76]

Easter and the resurrection of the Messiah are 2 different things.

The resurrection of the Messiah is in line with scripture, but celebrating a pagan holiday such as Easter is not in line with scripture.

It's not a pagan holiday. In fact Easter was calculated originally using the Jewish calendar.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Easter and the resurrection of the Messiah are 2 different things.

The resurrection of the Messiah is in line with scripture, but celebrating a pagan holiday such as Easter is not in line with scripture.

You have no evidence connecting Easter to a Pagan holiday. Simply saying Ishtar sounds like Easter isn't enough. Why, if Easter as a festal practice was derived from the Babylonian Ishtar do none of the Christian communities local to that region of the Middle East, Asia or the Mediterranean and whomever else you can think of, call it by the name of Pascha or Resurrection day?

Did the feast skip two entire continents worth of languages and people till it influenced the English and Germans. Even then you have the problem the names English and German speakers attach to the feast came around significantly later.

 

[FireDragon76]

While Christmas and Easter are important holidays in the Christian liturgical year, in the secular world it's quite a different story. The obvious reason why Christmas is much more widespread, celebrated, and commercialized is that besides the Easter brunch, the Easter bunny, the egg hunts are geared towards little kids.
Christmas, on the other hand, has something for everyone. Heck, even live trees are taken in homes and buildings and decorate! Christmas has lots of songs for everyone, but the only few secular songs of Easter, like "Here Comes Peter Cottontail", are made for little kids. Nowadays, the secular aspects of Easter are just for little kids.
Another thing worth mentioning is that the other holidays that surround Christmas are Thanksgiving (in North America) and New Year's. Plus, it's winter and there is not much to do.

Easter is more of a scandal and more religious in tone so not something people want to talk about publically, because our culture has taboos against doing so. But Christmas is veiled in bearded men on flying sleighs, it's less overtly religious in tone.

 

[Kerensa]

It's only a pagan holiday if you make it a pagan holiday.
The days of the weeks and months of the year are named after Greek, or Roman, gods, and are not recorded in Scripture - are they all pagan too? Should we not celebrate anything ever because it may have happened on a "pagan" day and not be laid down in Scripture?
You celebrate Easter, or not, as you wish. As I said, Easter Sunday gives us the perfect opportunity to share the Gospel with the world. Christians should all be coming together and shouting it from the rooftops, but what do we find instead; Christians arguing that this sacred, joyful feast day is pagan and shouldn't be observed.

The devil must be so happy.

Well said, sister.

 

[FireDragon76]

You have no evidence connecting Easter to a Pagan holiday. Simply saying Ishtar sounds like Easter isn't enough. Why, if Easter as a festal practice was derived from the Babylonian Ishtar do none of the Christian communities local to that region of the Middle East, Asia the Mediterranean and whomever else you can think of, call it by the name of Pascha or Resurrection day?

Easter is just a Germanic word that referred to the time of year the holiday fell under (that happens in German, too, holidays aren't always called by their strict liturgical name- Christmas Eve is called Weinachten, "Good Night", for instance). But most of Christendom called it Pascha or some variation thereof, in reference to the Passover.

 

[Strong in Him]

Well said, sister.

Thank you.

 

[Sparagmos]

The egg is a symbol of new life; you think there is nothing going on, then the hard shell cracks and a baby chick emerges.
In the same way, Jesus was dead, then he broke out of the tomb.
The bunnies were probably a sign of new life also - given the rate at which they are supposed to reproduce. or maybe just a sign of spring.

It is manufacturers who turned both into chocolate, and retailers who decided to make it about the new life of spring, rather than the new life that Christ gave after he rose from the dead.
If someone made a mould of a tomb, a risen Jesus and Mary Magdalene and these were turned into chocolate too - people might be more willing to celebrate and learn the true meaning of Easter.

That doesn’t make sense to me, since we do know that both rabbits and eggs are fertility symbols, and it seems like a stretch to say they represented new life given by Christ. The symbols existed before Christ lived. It makes more sense to me that the two celebrations merged. As I understand it, the pagan fertility goddess Oestre (sp) was depicted with a rabbit and the spring celebration involving her predated Christianity, and the exchange of eggs at spring festivals also predated Christianity. I’m not attached to these ideas personally but unles that stuff has been shown to be untrue it seems clear the bunnies and eggs predated Christ.

 

[FireDragon76]

That doesn’t make sense to me, since we do know that both rabbits and eggs are fertility symbols, and it seems like a stretch to say they represented new life given by Christ. The symbols existed before Christ lived. It makes more sense to me that the two celebrations merged.

Well, the phoenix was a pagan legend but also became a Christian symbol because a Church Father used it as an illustration of the resurrection. Just because something is pagan in origin doesn't mean it is forbidden necessarily. Many pagans used mathematics, after all, yet I don't see people arguing algebra is forbidden.

There is a legend that St. Patrick, when he went to Ireland, encountered a pagan symbol of a circle, a pagan solar symbol perhaps, and he simply drew a cross through it and that's how the celtic cross originated. As a sign of a fulflimment of the spiritual aspirations of the people. Maybe it's not exactly true (there are similar symbols in Coptic lands, perhaps at an earlier date), but it does show that Christians can respond to paganism in more sophisticated ways.

As I understand it, the pagan fertility goddess Oestre (sp) was depicted with a rabbit and the spring celebration involving her predated Christianity, and the exchange of eggs at spring festivals also predated Christianity. I’m not attached to these ideas personally but unles that stuff has been shown to be untrue it seems clear the bunnies and eggs predated Christ.

In Slavic countries, Pascha or Easter is actually closer to the Slavic pagan equivalent of Hallooween, which colors the meaning of the holiday in a completely different way. So the idea that Easter celebration was influenced by just one kind of paganism is not true.

 

[Strong in Him]

That doesn’t make sense to me, since we do know that both rabbits and eggs are fertility symbols,

They may be symbols of a number of things.
I don't go into Sainsbury's, see eggs and think "fertility", but we're all different.

and it seems like a stretch to say they represented new life given by Christ.

I didn't say that bunnies do; they may well represent fertility. Though for children, they will just be seen as signs of spring - like the cute little lambs too.
Eggs and lambs can certainly both be used to illustrate the Easter story and message of new life. Eggs don't look like much on the outside but do have new life growing withing them - under the right conditions, of course. While the link with lambs and Jesus as the Lamb of God, is obvious. It's not a matter of trying to make something "pagan" represent the resurrection; it's about using what is already there - lambs and eggs - to proclaim and illustrate the Good News.
Jesus did this all the time - used illustrations from life that people would know and understand to bring a new message.

The symbols existed before Christ lived.

Eggs and lambs existed before Christ, and no doubt bunnies did too - so what?

An egg can be used to illustrate new life; fact.
It can also be used to illustrate, or represent, fertility, if that is the particular message you want to give. Maybe some people always think "fertility" when they see an egg - I usually think breakfast, but maybe that's just me.
Maybe some people think "spring" and "new life" when they see lambs, or maybe they think something different.
With the exception of bunnies, the others are SYMBOLS and can be used, or not, to illustrate, tell or link into the Easter story.

 

[Kerensa]

I don't go into Sainsbury's, see eggs and think "fertility", but we're all different.

Neither do I, funnily enough...

Eggs and lambs can certainly both be used to illustrate the Easter story and message of new life. Eggs don't look like much on the outside but do have new life growing withing them - under the right conditions, of course. While the link with lambs and Jesus as the Lamb of God, is obvious. It's not a matter of trying to make something "pagan" represent the resurrection; it's about using what is already there - lambs and eggs - to proclaim and illustrate the Good News.
Jesus did this all the time - used illustrations from life that people would know and understand to bring a new message.

Totally agree. As for the bunnies, I grew up in a very secular family in Australia and Easter for us was mainly about eggs and bunnies — soft toy bunnies as well as chocolate ones. One of my favourite Easter gifts as a child was a big pink toy bunny which I loved to cuddle in bed at night for years afterwards. I was aware of the Christian story of the resurrection too, and loved the story of how Jesus died but he came to life again, but it wasn't until I was an adult (after years of agnosticism and, frankly, chronic depression) that I really found Christianity and that transformed everything.

But guess what? All those years of eggs and bunnies and secularised Easter never actually did me any harm. They didn't teach me to believe in pagan gods and fertility cults. They were just fun. I would expect the same goes for the vast majority of other people who celebrate Easter in a non-religious way. And now that I know and celebrate the real meaning of Easter, the commercialised non-Christian version of it doesn't worry me in the slightest. If someone gives me a chocolate bunny for Easter, I don't say "Ugh, no, that's a pagan fertility symbol, get it away from me!!" I just say "Thank you" and eat it. (Especially if it's a Lindt Gold bunny. Yum.)

Actually, back in Australia, for some years now there's been a push to replace the Easter Bunny with the Easter Bilby — the bilby being a small desert-dwelling bandicoot (with rabbit-like ears) that's seriously endangered. Rabbits, on the other hand, are a destructive feral species in Australia. So "back home", I'm all the happier to buy and give chocolate bilbies for Easter, since the companies that make them donate the money to saving the real-life bilby. Is that anything to do with the real meaning of Easter? No. Is it to do with loving and caring for God's creatures? Yes. So why not, I figure? Being a follower of Christ is a lot more about learning how to love my neighbours as myself — as He would have me love them — than about trying desperately and fearfully to avoid contact with anything "pagan". At least, that's how I see it.

 

[thecolorsblend]

I was told the colouring of the eggs represented the blood of sacrificed babies. It made me pretty sick. All of those things (santa, bunnies, eggs) are clearly pagan.

This is why people should be more skeptical about the things they read and hear.

 

[Foxfyre]

Is it because the public has less believe in resurrection or the Cross is too offensive to many?

I think it is mostly due to our carnal selves that we are both blessed and cursed with for our entire lives. We do what we think we should even though sometimes it is just for the sake of doing it or getting through the process/getting it over with out of a sense of obligation and duty.

But the fact is, Easter just isn't as much fun and doesn't generate pleasure to the same extent as Christmas. Sure the kids get their Easter baskets and hunt for Easter eggs and all that, but even that, while great fun for them, just isn't as glamorous or sexy as Santa Claus and Christmas trees with all those wondrous mysterious colorful packages under them and the hanging of the greens and all the extra fun at church and parties elsewhere. And Christmas music while including some rather pious and deeply religious hymns overall is more enjoyable and creates warm pleasurable feelings more so than most Easter music does.

For what it is worth though, Christmas is highly stressful to the point of creating depression for many. Easter rarely has that effect.

 

[FireDragon76]

I think it is mostly due to our carnal selves that we are both blessed and cursed with for our entire lives. We do what we think we should even though sometimes it is just for the sake of doing it or getting through the process/getting it over with out of a sense of obligation and duty.

But the fact is, Easter just isn't as much fun and doesn't generate pleasure to the same extent as Christmas. Sure the kids get their Easter baskets and hunt for Easter eggs and all that, but even that, while great fun for them, just isn't as glamorous or sexy as Santa Clause and Christmas trees with all those wondrous mysterious colorful packages under them. And Christmas music while including some rather pious and deeply religious hymns overall is more enjoyable and creates warm pleasurable feelings more so than most Easter music does.

For what it is worth though, Christmas is highly stressful to the point of creating depression for many. Easter rarely has that effect.

We live in a very much death denying culture. People don't even want to think about it in some cases, much less ever talk about it in public. Easter at least has the shadow of death behind it.

 

[Kerensa]

We live in a very much death denying culture. People don't even want to think about it in some cases, much less ever talk about it in public. Easter at least has the shadow of death behind it.

And yet it ends with death overcome — which for some secular thinkers might be even more uncomfortable than talking about death...

 

[Foxfyre]

We live in a very much death denying culture. People don't even want to think about it in some cases, much less ever talk about it in public. Easter at least has the shadow of death behind it.

That could have something to do with it, but I think mostly it is just a cultural thing. The lore and traditions built up around Christmas and the commercial value behind that has just made it more emotionally important and obligatory overall than recognizing Easter is to most Americans. It is probably the same in other places.

 

[Dave-W]

Celebrating Easter is not in line with the Scriptures.

Celebrating Yom ha Bikkurim is COMMANDED in Scripture.