The Unholy Easter Holiday
Did you know that Easter has nothing to do with the Savior of mankind, Yahshua the Messiah? The word “Easter” actually comes from the name Ishtar, a goddess of fertility, spring and the dawn worshipped in ancient times. Today we are going to share with you the shocking truth about the unholy Easter holiday. Maybe this truth doesn’t matter to you. Maybe you believe it’s okay to incorporate Easter as part of the worship of Yahshua the Messiah. But let us show you from the Bible why you should rethink the observance of Easter. The popular customs associated with the Easter celebration—Easter rabbits, colored Easter egg hunts, hot cross buns and early sunrise services—have nothing to do with the biblical record of Yahshua’s life, in this case His resurrection! May you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear this true and faithful message of the Kingdom. As always, we ask the power of the Holy Spirit for heavenly wisdom in sharing with you this very important topic you may not heard nor been told before.
The Church or Assembly that Yahshua the Messiah founded had a very clear understanding of who He was and how to worship Him. But over many decades things changed. Gradually, through the years after the death of the original apostles, false teachings began creeping into the Church. Among these fake teachings was a distortion and corruption of the truth about the death and resurrection of Yahshua the Messiah! The apostle Peter warned that false gospel teachers among the Christians would “secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them” (2 Peter 2:1). He warned against replacing the clear truth of Yahshua the Messiah with pagan myth and false teaching. Yet in spite of Peter’s clear warning, many people bought into the denial. The apostle Paul also strongly warned the Church members in Asia Minor that they were flirting with a false gospel, saying: “I marvel that you’re turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Messiah, to a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6).
Easter was introduced into the apostate Western religion as part of the attempt to adapt pagan festivals to Christianity. The term “Easter” is not of Christian origin at all. It is another form of Astarte, one of the titles of the Chaldean goddess. The Bible refers to her as “Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians” (2 Kings 23:13) and “the queen of heaven,” whose worship Yahweh condemned (Jeremiah 7:18, 44:24-28). The New Testament of the Bible does not mention an Easter celebration. Early Christians had nothing to do with Easter. Instead, they kept the Passover, instituted by Yahweh centuries earlier at the time of the Exodus (Exodus 12:13-14; Leviticus 23:5). The Savior of mankind, Yahshua the Messiah, personally kept the Passover (Matthew 26:17-18) and gave it a clearer meaning under the New Covenant with His institution of the symbols of bread and wine for His beaten body and shed blood, signifying His suffering and death on our behalf (Matthew 26:26-29). Yahshua is the Lamb of Yahweh, offered as the true Passover sacrifice for the sins of the world (John 1:29; 1 Corinthians 5:7). He told His followers to continue this observance in remembrance of Him and His death (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). Soon, however, pressure to replace Passover with popular Easter customs began to build. Many people began to celebrate Easter with parades and sunrise services. In fact, the celebration of Easter is so popular that in the United States the observance of the unholy Easter holiday takes place annually on the White House lawn!
In addition, as Easter replaced Passover, not only was a new date selected (the Sunday after the spring equinox rather than the biblically directed Nissan 14), but a new theme was introduced. Rather than commemorating Yahshua’s death as directed by the Bible (1 Corinthians 11:26), the Easter holiday was designed to celebrate His ressurection. This new theme easily accomodated the pagan fertility symbols. It also helped distinguish many of the professing “religious” community from the Jews, a major goal of many and supposedly “Christian” church leaders in earlier times. Sadly, this continues even at present time. But again, the Bible nowhere instructs genuine Christians to keep a special celebration of Yahshua’s resurrection, nor is there a biblical record of early Christians doing so! But it is very clear that both Yahshua the Messiah and the apostle Paul expected Yahshua’s followers to commemorate His sacrificial death on our behalf in a special ceremony (pictured by Passover) (Matthew 26:26-28; 1 Corinthians 5:7; 11:23-28). Nonetheless, the celebration of Easter prevailed. Those who remained faithful to Yahshua’s example of keeping the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread decreased in number and were persecuted by those favoring Easter. Although Yahshua’s resurrection is an important basis of our hope that we, too, can be resurrected (1 Corinthians 15:17; Romans 5:10), and it was critical for Almighty Yahweh’s plan of salvation to continue, neither Yahweh the Father, Yahshua the Son has ever explicitly directed us to celebrate this event! Indeed, the love of Yahweh is primarily expressed to all humanity through the crucifixion of Yahshua the Messiah (John 3:16; Hebrews 9:28). Yahshua’s death, through which our sins may be forgiven, is the key primary focus of the Passover, not His resurrection!
Furthermore, the choice of a Sunday date for Easter is based on the wrong assumption that Yahshua the Messiah rose from the grave early on a Sunday morning. The popular belief is that Yahshua was crucified on a Friday and rose on a Sunday. Some try to reconcile Yahshua’s words with their belief in a Friday crucifixion and Sunday resurrection by rationalizing that Yahshua’s “three days and three nights” statement does not require a literal span of 72 hours. They reason that a part of the day can be reckoned as a whole day. Hence, since Yahshua died in the afternoon—around “the ninth hour” after daybreak, or about 3 p.m. (Matthew 27:46-50)—they think the remainder of Friday constituted the first day, Saturday the second and part of Sunday the third. But these suppositions are not supported by the biblical record! Many fail to take into consideration that only two nights—Friday night and Saturday night—are accounted for in this explanation. After all, the Bible is clear that Yahshua had already risen before the daylight portion of Sunday (John 20:1). Something is obviously incorrect in this common conclusion regarding when Yahshua was in the tomb. Notice that some of the scribes and Pharisees asked Yahshua for a sign to prove He was the Messiah (Matthew 12:38). Yahshua told them that the only sign He would give was that of the prophet Jonah: “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:40). There’s no reason to think these days and nights were fractional. Nor is there any basis for thinking that Yahshua meant only two nights and one day, plus parts of two days, when He foretold the length of time He would be in the grave. Such rationalization undermines the integrity of the Savior’s very own words! If Yahshua were in the tomb only from late Friday afternoon to sometime early Sunday morning, then the sign He gave that He was the prophesied Messiah was not fulfilled! Have you ever thought about that for a second? The Savior of mankind Yahshua would never lie!
The Bible wording of Mark 16:1-2 is confusing to some because it seems to suggest that the spices were purchased after the weekly Sabbath rather than before it, on Friday. However, this is explained by Luke 23:56, which clearly shows that the women bought the spices before, and not after, the weekly Sabbath, “and they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.” Mark did not mention this weekly Sabbath rest in his account, but Luke, who wrote his account of these events later, did. Some also stumble over Mark 16:9, not taking into account that there is no punctuation indicated in the original Greek! The correct translation would be: “Now having risen, early the first day of the week He appeared first to Mary Magdalene…” These verses are not saying that Yahshua rose early on Sunday morning, but that He appeared early on Sunday morning to Mary Magdalene, having already risen some time earlier! Therefore, when we consider the details in all four Gospel accounts, the picture is very clear. The Savior of mankind Yahshua was crucified and entombed late on Wednesday afternoon, just before a Sabbath began at sunset. However, that was a high-day Sabbath, falling that year on the fifth day of the week, sunset Wednesday to sunset Thursday, rather than the weekly Sabbath from Friday sunset through Saturday sunset. Yahshua remained entombed from Wednesday at sunset until Saturday at sunset, having risen from the dead. Thus, when Mary Magdalene came to the tomb on Sunday morning before sunrise, “while it was still dark,” she found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. Yahshua rose late Saturday afternoon around sunset!
In closing, the unholy Easter holiday and its customs originated not from the Bible, but in pagan fertility rites. It is a mixture of ancient mythological practices and arbitrary dating that obscures and discredits the proof of Yahshua’s Messiahship and resurrection! Yes, we can be assured that the duration of Yahshua’s entombment before His resurrection, which He foretold as proof of His Messiahship, was precisely as long as He said it would be—equaling the “three days and three nights (Jonah was) in the belly of the great fish” (Matthew 12:40). Thus, Yahshua rose late Saturday afternoon around sunset—not Sunday at sunrise—which was exactly three days and three nights after He was placed in the tomb just before sunset on Wednesday! Yahshua the Messiah’s prophecy of the time He would be in the tomb was fulfilled precisely! Because most people do not understand the biblical high days kept by Yahshua and His original apostles, they fail to understand the chronological details so accurately preserved for us in the Bible. Why does a major, supposedly “Christian” holy day have the name of a pagan goddess of fertility attached to it? Why celebrate that holiday with the fertility symbols of eggs and rabbits? You may think, “All this Easter stuff really doesn’t matter to you because you do it to honor the Messiah who is in heaven.” But it does matter! It is time to wake up from religious deception! It is time to resist a Babylonian system! Yahweh warned us to “Come out of her, My people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues” (Revelation 18:4). A very sad truth is, what many think of as Christianity today is very different from that of Yahshua the Messiah and His original apostles’ works. It is time for you to acquaint yourself with the Passover and other ordained annual Holy Days of our heavenly Father Yahweh. May this true and faithful Kingdom message sanctify you. May Yahweh bless you and keep you, especially to our “small flock” brethren of the same faith around the world. All this we ask and pray in the name of our coming Savior and King, Yahshua Messiah, Amen. Shalom and Halleluyah!
