Easter is not about Jesus

Whatever made you think it was?

Easter is about bunnies and chicks, chocolate eggs and hot cross buns, family gatherings, holidays and Bank Holiday Monday traffic jams. Jesus rarely gets a look in. And why should He? It's not His Feast.

One of His Feasts is Passover/Pesach. Pesach is the Hebrew word from which we get the words 'paschal', 'Pascal', 'pasque' as in the flowers which are late this year, etc. 

It happens about the same time as Easter, but Easter goes back further. Eostre was a northern mother goddess of fertility, but variant forms of her name and general duties turn up all over the place. Our friend Nimue or Innana was also known as Ishtar. Elsewhere she was Astarte and in Ancient Israel you will find her in the Tenach as Ashtoreth. 

She is typical of the widespread belief in a mother goddess and is often associated with the horned moon (crescent) and the morning star (Venus). This is pretty much universal, with the exception of Arabia, where in pagan Arabia, the moon was seen as a god and since Mohammed, his family crest of crescent moon and star, has become the symbol of Islam.

It's worth noting that how symbols were used and how they are used now isn't always the same thing. They weren't always used in the same way at any given time.

Jesus is about Sacrificial Death and Resurrection. He rose again at the barley harvest. The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost/Shavuot another Spring-ish harvest. His return will be at Tabernacles/Sukkot, which is yet another harvest. It was also when He was born, but that is another story which I'm saving for later in the year.

Eostre, and all those other god and goddesses, sometimes have stories which, at first sight, look like Bible Stories. The Bible has something they don't. Firstly, it is a lot less fanciful and more prosaic, and , secondly, it has history on its side.

Jesus was, and is, a real person, and His life is referred to outside the Bible. He can also be dated and quite accurately. None of the other contenders has any kind of historicity and the events of their 'lives' have never been dated, even approximately.

Enjoy your chocolate eggs and bunnies, but give thanks to the Risen Lord Jesus Christ. He is alive!