Why my family chooses to observe Passover and First Fruits instead of Easter.

A few years ago I would have scoffed at anyone that told me I would ever abandon Easter as a Holy Day. But they would have been absolutely right. I used to look forward to Easter. It was after all the day our Lord resurrected from the dead right? It is a celebration of spring time, new life, flowers, eggs etc. When I was introduced to what the true origins of the Easter traditions were I was in shock. Below is the story of where Easter originated taken from this website: http://forum119.heavenforum.org/t8-what-are-the-ancient-origins-of-easter-and-does-it-really-matter

“The greatest of all of the gods throughout all of history and all civilizations was virtually always the “sun-god”. And the first god worshipped as the god of the sun was Nimrod, the very same Nimrod from the book of Genesis. And from the book of Genesis we learn that Nimrod was a great grandson of Noah, an incredible hunter and became a mighty king on the earth. Genesis also records for us in chapter 10 that he was responsible for building the kingdoms of Babel and Nineveh along with many other cities. But his most famous accomplishment was the “brilliant” idea to build a “tower whose top would reach the heavens”. This in turn provoked the LORD to come down out of heaven to confuse their language and scatter them over the face of the earth. This infamous tower became known as the “Tower of Babel”. Nimrod was said to be the most powerful ruler of all time and when he died, Babylonian legend says that he ascended into the heavens and he became the sun-god. The name that the people of his time would call him would be “Baal” which means “lord”. The wife that he left behind was named Semiramis, who would now become the “Queen of Heaven” since she was the wife of the sun-god Baal. 

Years later Semiramis became pregnant. She declared that she had become pregnant by the rays of the sun of her deceased husband, Nimrod (Baal), and nine months later she gave birth to a son in which she gave the name “Tammuz”. Because of the god-like status of his late father Nimord, baby Tammuz was quickly haled to be the reincarnation of his father Nimrod. Tammuz, like his father, also became a mighty hunter on the earth. But, when he was forty years of age, he was killed by a wild boar on one of his hunting expeditions. Because he was revered to be the reincarnated sun-god, his death brought great despair upon the people of Babel. So, they set aside forty days of weeping and fasting for Tammuz each year in the Spring to commemorate each year that he was alive. (This tradition has been passed down through the ages to the church and is where we get the forty days of fasting before Easter Sunday. This is where the Catholic original tradition of “Lent” came from until Catholic leadership changed the origination to the 40 days of fasting that Jesus did in the wilderness.) After the forty days of weeping, they would kill a wild boar (getting back at the boar that killed Tammuz) and eat the ham on the first Sunday after the Spring Equinox (This is where the tradition of eating ham on Easter Sunday came from). Also as a side note, one of the ancient statues of Mary holding baby Jesus in the Vatican is actually a REAL statue of Semiramis holding baby Tammuz! The Catholic Church just changed the names to Mary and Jesus!

Many years later, as the legend continues, Tammuz’s mother Semiramis dies and ascends into heaven. But as the luck of the Babylonian legend would have it, when she ascended into the heavens, the gods sent her back down to earth in a giant egg at sunrise on the first Sunday after the vernal equinox (first day of Spring). She landed in the Euphrates River, the egg busted open and she turned a bird into an egg laying rabbit. (Have you ever wondered where the Easter Bunny and Easter Eggs came from? Well, now you know.) Eggs were very symbolic of many pagan religions as many believed that the earth itself came from a giant egg. Furthermore, the rabbit was looked upon as the most fertile animal on earth and the egg was also viewed as a symbol of fertility and new life. This is why these two symbols were attributed to the new “Queen of Heaven”, Ishtar. 

It is also important to note that the process of deifying someone included renaming the individual after they had died. Many times they would be given a name that represented whatever they were going to be the god of. The new name of Semiramus according to the Babylonians was Ishtar, the god of fertility and the god of the East, or sunrise. Later, the Phoenicians and the Greeks in their language called her Astarte, the Zidonians called her Ashtaroth (Judges 2:13 “And they forsook the LORD and served Baal and Ashtaroth.”), the Philistines in the time of Saul kept the name Ishtar and the Celtics called her Eostra. 

(Judges 10:6, “And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the LORD, and served Him not.”)

But all of these names were referring to the same goddess: the bare-breasted fertility goddess of the Spring. And guess what the Anglicization of the Babylonian name “Ishtar” is? You guessed it---Easter. 

The Bible does mention most of the various names of Easter, but does not go in great detail of how she was worshipped. So we are forced to go to history books, ancient extra biblical sources and ancient legends that describe these subjects in more detail. For example, Paul mentions the “Circumcision Party” in one of his letters. We don’t get a clear picture of who these people were, so we must rely on other historical sources from that time period to describe more accurately who the Circumcision Party was in order to correctly interpret that scripture. In the same manner, if God tells us not to worship Him the way that people used to worship Baal, (Deut. 12:29-32), and not to even mention the names of their gods in connection with Him (Ex. 23:13), then it is very vital to know HOW people worshiped Baal so that we do not adopt those same practices in our worship of the true God, Yahweh. Scripture does not give us all of the details of how the people worshipped Baal and Easter. The reason is that the people to whom the scriptures were written to already knew all of the details. So because we are thousands of years removed from their time period and culture, we rely on what the Bible does tell us, but we also rely heavily on historians like Josephus and others that paint the pictures of what each subject looked like in vivid detail. Even a quick look into what Catholic historians say about this subject is revealing: 

“The reasons for celebrating our major feasts when we do are many and varied. In general, however, it is true that many of them have at least an indirect connection with the pre-Christian [pagan] feasts celebrated about the same time of year — feasts centering around the harvest, the rebirth of the sun at the winter solstice (now Dec. 21, but Dec. 25 in the old Julian calendar), the renewal of nature in spring, and so on.”

Source: The New Question Box - Catholic Life for the Nineties, copyright 1988 by John J. Dietzen, M.A., S.T.L., ISBN 0-940518-01-5 (paperback), published by Guildhall Publishers, Peoria Illinois, 61651., page 554.

Even the Oxford English dictionary defines “Easter” as “The name of a goddess whose festival was celebrated at the vernal equinox…originally known as the dawn goddess, the goddess of fertility.”

So let’s get back to the story. So, as sun worship (Baal worship) increased and became world wide, so did the worship of his wife, the “Queen of Heaven”, Easter. We are told through this Babylonian legend that every year on “Easter Sunday” at sunrise, the priests of Easter would impregnate young virgins on the altar of Baal. Then, the next year, they would take the now three month old babies and sacrifice them on the altar on Easter Sunday at the sunrise service. They would then take the eggs of Easter and dye the eggs in the blood of the sacrificed infants. Here is an interesting quote that I found on the internet. “Red is a traditional color for dying eggs…Red dyed eggs are offered to the god and goddess of the bed in China.” Interestingly enough, although pastel colors are mostly used here in America, red is the most popular color that Easter eggs are dyed worldwide. Even the official White House Easter egg is made of ruby red glass. This tradition finds its roots all the way back to the dying of Easter eggs in the blood of sacrificed children. You may not have wanted to learn that last factual root of where the tradition of dying Easter eggs came from. Neither did I. But in the end, I would hope that all true believers would rather know the truth about these things, rather than do something without knowledge of why we do them or where they came from.”

So there you have it, the pagan story of where Easter traditions come from. You might ask, "How did the church adopt these practices"? The Catholic Church adopted the pagan traditions into Christianity in order to attract pagans into the religion. So instead of trusting the Holy Spirit to move people to the God of Christianity they took it upon themselves to move the God of Christianity into paganism. Is this what God teaches us to do? Are we to assimilate into the corruptness surrounding us in order to evangelize and reach others. Maybe we should start dispensing drug needles in the name of God to get the drug addicts into church. This would essentially be the same practice that the early “church” father’s did. But is it really possible to “redeem” pagan ways for God? Let’s see what God has to say about this?

Deut. 12:29 says, "When the LORD your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, 30 "take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.’ 31 "You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way; for every abomination to the LORD which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. 32 "Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it. "You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way” 

Right here we are told to NEVER use pagan ways to worship the One True God. Yet isn’t that exactly what we are doing when we participate in the Easter traditions. Even the day is pagan originated. It is in line with the Spring Equinox which is exactly when the pagans celebrate their holy days. Instead of using God’s calendar which points us to Passover and First Fruits for the death and resurrection “Christianity” has instead turned to pagan days and traditions. I challenge all of my Christian friends to show me exactly where the early followers celebrated Easter at the Spring Equinox using Scripture. Show me where they dyed eggs, ate ham and hot cross buns. Show me where they celebrated bunnies and ate chocolate. I would like to see that. If you can’t find it then I submit to you that the “Christian” church is following traditions of men that cannot be found in Scripture. What does our Messiah say about the traditions of men?

Mark 7:8-9 ""Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men."He was also saying to them, "You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition."

So if this is the case, shouldn’t we abandon our traditions? Shouldn’t we run to keep God’s commandments? And what are the commandments regarding the celebration of the death and resurrection of our Messiah? Let’s look to Scripture to find out.

1 Corinthians 5:7-8 “Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

What feast is being referred to here in regard to celebrating Messiah and what does Paul tell us to do with it? It is Passover and the week of unleavened bread and Paul says we are to KEEP it. He confirms that Yeshua (Jesus) is our Passover lamb! So why would we observe a pagan tradition? Why wouldn’t we KEEP the feast just as we are told to do?

When you begin to study the timeline of the week of Yeshua’s death and resurrection along with the timeline of the week of Passover something amazing happens. It all lines up! Yeshua rode into Jerusalem on a donkey 4 days before Passover, just as the high Priest was bringing in the chosen lamb. He then spent 4 days being looked over and scrutinized for any blemish, just as the lamb was. Then He was sacrificed on the preparation day at 3pm, the exact moment that the lamb was being slaughtered in the Temple. As He died He said “it is finished”, the same words uttered by the High Priest as He spilled the blood of the lamb onto the altar. Then He was sealed into the tomb just after sunset. On the first day of the week (Saturday night as they reckoned days as beginning at sundown) Yeshua rose from the dead on the Feast of First Fruits as He was the first fruit of the resurrection, just as Paul described Him.

1 Corinthians 15:23 "But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming."

Why do we need to place the celebration of Yeshua’s resurrection on some pagan day with pagan traditions when God built into His commandments His Feasts which coincide perfectly with our Messiah’s death and resurrection? The richness found in the Feasts is utterly amazing. Now that I have experienced them I can see the plan of Messiah throughout them. I encourage all to study and participate in the days that are in Scripture, the Holy Days that were created and commanded by God and to stop following after the traditions of men!

I will leave you with a few Scriptures to ponder:

Cakes to the “queen of heaven” – today they are called hot cross buns

Jeremiah 7:18 "The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead [their] dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger."

Worshipping towards the sun? Sounds pretty similar to a sunrise service to me. Weeping for Tammuz? 40 days, 1 day per year he lived. Strikingly similar to the 40 days of Lent!

Ezekiel 8:13-16""Yet you will see still greater abominations which they are committing." Then He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the LORD'S house which was toward the north; and behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.He said to me, "Do you see this, son of man? Yet you will see still greater abominations than these."Then He brought me into the inner court of the LORD'S house. And behold, at the entrance to the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east; and they were prostrating themselves eastward toward the sun."

The Feasts are the Feasts of the LORD! Not the Feasts of the Jews!!

Le 23:2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, concerning the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are My feasts.

The Gentiles (aliens) are to keep the feast too!

Numbers 9:14 “If an alien sojourns among you and observes the Passover to the LORD, according to the statute of the Passover and according to its ordinance, so he shall do; you shall have one statute, both for the alien and for the native of the land.'"

I hope my Christian friends and family will at least begin to question why they do the things they do in worship to God. Are you worshipping God in the way He wants to be worshipped? Or are you Worshipping God using practices done by pagan nations to their gods?

Joshua 24:15 “"If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."”