Why Eggs and Easter Bunnies?

This weekend I wondered why we celebrate the resurrection of Christ with dyed eggs and the Easter Bunny. I did a little investigative work on Wikipedia and the history channel website. I learned about some pagan influences, symbols, the connection to Passover, and mostly I learned about Christ. All things testify of Him!

Pagan Influences

It seems to me like a few of our holidays have been influenced by traditional pagan celebrations. Even the origin of the name “Easter” supposedly comes from a Germanic pagan goddess “Eostre,” who had a month in the Anglo-Saxon calendar named after her – the month that we call April. Celebrations for this goddess during the springtime included feasts and perhaps even eggs and hares.

Symbols of New Life

The ancient Germanic egg and hare symbols were most likely brought to the United States in the 1700s by Germanic settlers. Their children would make nests which would be filled over night with colorful eggs by the mythical egg-laying Easter bunny or "Oschter Haws."

Eggs have long symbolized new life and it is logical that they would be used to celebrate springtime, along with the newly hatched chicks. Some say that the egg represents Christ’s emergence from the tomb.

Rabbits are known to be “prolific procreators,” also appropriate animals to celebrate the coming of spring and new life.

These symbols that we use in our celebration of Christ’s Resurrection are certainly appropriate as we celebrate that all will be resurrected because Christ conquered death.

My History Mind…

Most of the original converts to Christianity were raised Jewish. They were used to celebrating Passover every year, a feast which commemorated the Israelites’ feast in Egypt before they were freed from enslavement. Christ’s last supper was most likely a Passover Seder, or dinner.

Then, when Christ died and fulfilled the Jewish prophesies that a Messiah would come and die like the “paschal lamb” (a symbolic part of their Passover feast), Christians began to celebrate His death and resurrection with an Easter feast instead of a Passover feast. In other languages, Easter is translated as a derivative of the word Passover.

Evidence that early Christians switched from celebrating Passover to Easter is found in 1st Corinthians 5:7-8:

^aPurge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are ^bunleavened. For even Christ our ^cpassover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the ^afeast, not with old ^bleaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of ^csincerity and truth.

New Life

I’m thankful that Jesus Christ condescended below all pains, sorrows, afflictions, and a terrible death, in order to more fully understand our pains and sorrows. I’m thankful that he then rose from the tomb, triumphant over death!

This beautiful Easter season, as we celebrate the new life that Spring brings after a long, dark winter, I am thankful that though all things die, in Christ, all things shall be made alive. The trees outside my window that lost their leaves will soon be bursting with green and life. All things truly do testify of Christ:

“All things denote there is a God; yea, even the ^bearth, and ^call things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its ^dmotion, yea, and also all the ^eplanets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.” (Alma 30: 44)

I think that our creator gave us the seasons of the year to remind us that though the winter is fierce, dark, cold and lonely, with dying plants and flowers without bloom, springtime will come. Though our loved ones die, resurrection will come. As Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin put it, Sunday will come.

“Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays. But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come. No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come. I testify to you that the Resurrection is not a fable. We have the personal testimonies of those who saw Him. Thousands in the Old and New Worlds witnessed the risen Savior. They felt the wounds in His hands, feet, and side. They shed tears of unrestrained joy as they embraced Him.” (“Sunday Will Come”)