A pagan word like ‘Easter’ is not fit for such a sacred feast
LAST Monday was the Eve of Passover — Erev Pesach in Hebrew — when most Jewish families meet for an annual Seder meal recounting the story of the people of Israel being led by God from slavery and bondage in Egypt to the Promised Land. The prayers of those Jews who were later forced from that Promised Land by the romans in AD135 are expressed at the end of the Passover meal with the words ‘Next year in Jerusalem!’ It was this Passover Meal that Jesus, or Yeshua, as a Jew, shared with his disciples before His death on Passover Eve and at which He asked His followers to remember Him ‘as often as ye do this’. recent reports had Prime Minister Theresa May bewailing the loss of the word ‘Easter’ in a chocolate egg hunt at National Trust venues in England. The organisers deny they have banished the word ‘Easter’. But has anyone ever thought where the word comes from or what it means? It has no connection with Jesus or His death. It’s the name of a pagan deity celebrating fertility, quoted by the Venerable Bede as ‘Eastre’ or ‘Eostre’, appearing in different cultures at different periods as ‘Ishtar’, ‘Astarte’ and even in the Bible as ‘Ashtoreth’. Is this a suitable title for what is claimed to be the Church’s most important feast? Surely the Biblical word for this event should be Passover. It would appear that the change suited anti-Jewish sentiments within the Church at the time, as Passover was too closely connected with the Jews — though this is hardly surprising in that Jesus was a circumcised Jew and the New Testament states: ‘Christ (Messiah) is our Passover — therefore let us keep the feast’ (Passover). rather than an outcry at the term ‘Easter’ being dropped, we should welcome it. Pagan fertility symbols like Easter bunnies and eggs have nothing to do with the Biblical story of Jesus and it’s time the two were separated to avoid further confusion or offence.