Whether you know Easter as the day that Christ rose from the dead or the day when the Easter Bunny hides eggs for scavengers to find, the question of why Easter is a universally celebrated holiday is questioned by many. When exactly did it spread worldwide? Why do multiple cultures celebrate it? How is the Easter Bunny able to hide so many eggs?
The well known reason for celebrating Easter comes from the Christian Bible. It is the day which Christ rose from the dead three days after being crucified by the Romans sometime around 30 A.D. For pagans, Easter is the celebration of the spring equinox, since pagans live in accordance with nature’s rhythms. Solstices and equinoxes were considered to be sacred times as they were when the seasons were changing.
Even China celebrates Easter, but not in the Christian way. The Chinese people celebrate by offering eggs as gifts, painted beautifully to represent life, rebirth and fertility. Similarly, just as Jesus rising from the tomb, an egg is viewed as the vessel for new life. However, the reason for eggs on Easter has a simpler reason. From Ash Wednesday to Easter is the 40 days of the Lenten season. During this time there were many things you weren’t able to do in order to separate your physical body from your spiritual soul and become closer to God. A big part of this was fasting, a process in which you couldn’t eat animal based products, meaning one of those things was eggs, So eggs being associated with Easter isn’t for superficial reasons, but rather an unsatiated craving for eggs. This made the end of Lent so much more anticipated as eggs were a really big source of protein back in the medieval times.
There are many questions about why the Easter Bunny gets associated with Easter, because there’s no mention of it in Christian Bibles nor do bunnies even lay eggs. So why a bunny? This time the myth has pagan roots, specifically the goddess of dawn and spring, Eostre, while not being a rabbit, her animal symbol is that of a rabbit. It is also said that sometime in the 18th Century, German immigrants in Pennsylvania introduced their hare named “Osterhase” who would lay eggs as gifts to children who were good, kind of like Santa.
Regardless of their origin, these Easter symbols are here to stay. This year Easter falls on Sunday, March 31 and school will be out March 29 – April 1. Happy Easter!
