Various Christians have discussed the fact the Easter is named after a goddess, and have lamented the fact that easter egg hunts have taken their place, on a day which should be reserved for praise and honor for Jesus, since this is His day of victory. In fact, in 1990, the Holy Spirit commented on "Easter fun" in the church, when He gave the prophecy, THE BLOOD. Yet now, in the United States, the press feels enough freedom to print this sneer at Jesus, on Easter Day. In the past, a story showing a cross, or a pilgrimage, or some other thing that showed honor for Jesus, would have been the story they ran. But now, as the whole world has become Nineveh, a story of belittlement is the story chosen.

Easter: Bunnies, Eggs and Resurrection:
Easter combines symbols from ancient people
with the celebration of Christ's resurrection

Long before organized religion, humans celebrated the victory of spring over winter, of life over death, with rituals to their gods.

Ancient Egyptian, Persian and Chinese civilizations used the egg as the icon of fertility, of new life, centuries before it became a symbol of Christ's resurrection.

By the fourth century, Christians began calling their annual celebration Easter, borrowing the name from the pagan goddess of spring and offspring, Eastre.

Believers consider Easter the holiest day of the year. But many of their traditions are as interlocked as prayerful hands with centuries-old secular customs.

Today, after attending services commemorating Christ's victory over death, Christians will continue to celebrate the holiday with many customs, including hunting for eggs or giving baskets of goodies, all from the Easter Bunny.

The bunny connection with Easter probably was brought to England by Angles and Saxons. They considered the rabbit, an animal with many offspring, a symbol of fertility, according to the Venerable Bede, an eighth century Benedictine monk.

Bede is credited with chronicling early Anglo-Saxon Christian history. Bede wrote that early Englanders joyously greeted each spring with dance, drink, roaring fires and festivities associated with Eastre.

Donald Sullivan, a retired University of New Mexico history professor, said Bede described how Christian missionaries "adapted" these pagan symbols for the early church's use. From celebrating the revival of nature and the return of the sun's warmth, Easter became the rebirth of mankind through Christ's death and resurrection.

The rabbit's connection with Easter continued to evolve. During the Middle Ages, the Easter Bunny hopped into German tradition, according to Sullivan.

Children expected the bunny to leave them colored eggs as a reward for being good, much like Santa at Christmas. Children prepared an Easter nest, hoping to find it full of eggs, he said.

The bunny made its way to America when German immigrants came to Pennsylvania. After the Civil War, he said, the custom spread as people settled in new territories throughout the West.

Essential egg

Egyptians gave eggs as gifts in court ceremonies long before Christianity existed. But one of the earliest recorded egg-coloring events took place in England.

King Edward I bought 450 eggs in the spring of 1290. After they were decorated, he gave them to people in his court, Sullivan said. "Early Christians venerated the egg because it symbolized for them Christ breaking from the tomb," he said.

In her book "Lilies, Rabbits, and Painted Eggs," Edna Barth writes about other Easter traditions:
* Hungry children during the Middle Ages would go from house to house begging for eggs during the Easter season, a practice that continues today and is similar to trick-or-treating on Halloween.
* In Germany on Easter Eve, young people continue a centuries-old ritual of setting large straw wheels on fire and rolling them down hillsides. The blazing wheel represents the sun, which was a god to early humankind.
* Wearing new clothes for the holiday evolved over time to today's Easter parades. The tradition started with early Christians who were baptized during Holy Week and were dressed in white robes. By the Middle Ages, Christians who had worn the same garments all winter were expected to put on new clothing for Holy Week.
* Baskets of eggs and other food items are blessed at church the day before Easter, becoming a special Sunday meal for people of Polish, Russian and Ukrainian heritage.
* Egg games are played wherever the holiday is celebrated. The most famous is the egg roll the Monday after Easter on the White House lawn, a tradition started by President Hayes in 1878.
* Easter lilies are neither a spring flower nor an American flower. Originally grown in Japan, lilies -- a symbol of purity -- are forced to bloom for Easter.

"A lot of these customs that we know so clearly now were 19th century ideas," said Sullivan, referring to Easter bonnets, parades, giving lilies and chocolate eggs. "It just shows how generations alter these symbols to suit their own purposes." Sullivan said he regrets how the Christian message of Easter has been commercialized. "I would hope (people) would never lose that religious sense of what Easter means," he said.

Celebrating light

From about the second century on, there was evidence that Christians celebrated the resurrection of Christ. The holiday was called Pasch, from the Hebrew word pesach, meaning pass over, Sullivan said.

Between the second and fourth centuries, Christians moved gradually away from the Jewish Passover tradition by adding certain traditions from the pagan Germans' Eastre celebration, he said.

By the fourth century, the church separated its Easter celebration from Passover with Easter always falling on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox. "This was a neat appropriation by the Christian church as it moved into a broader European world," Sullivan said.

When St. Patrick came to Ireland in the fifth century, the Irish participated in a pagan spring fire rite that they wanted to keep, according to Barth's book.

St. Patrick gave the Irish a new ceremony -- huge bonfires outside churches. The custom of blessing a fire spread throughout Europe, becoming part of Easter services.

Light is the strongest of all Easter symbols, said Megan McKenna, an Albuquerque theologian. "Sunday refers to resurrection, she said. "That's why the Protestants literally celebrate at sunrise. Traditionally, the resurrection happened at sunrise."

In the early Christian church, Easter was celebrated as an initiation rite for new believers, who received baptism, confirmation and Holy Communion at the same time. Services included lighting a tall Easter candle from the bonfire outside the church. The candle was brought into the dark sanctuary, and the faithful would light their candles from it, she said. "The idea is really getting in touch with the night, which is death, and the dramatic coming of the light -- the son of God," she said.

One of 15 children, McKenna recalled returning from Easter services to a family breakfast, including crumb cake. The crumbly cake symbolized breaking open the tomb and death being shattered, she said. "Easter for me is transformation," McKenna said. "Because of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, what it means to be human is transformed to being like God -- that specifically, life is stronger than death and love is stronger than evil. "We who live in Christ are supposed to live Easter every day."