Easter is a day that is honered by nearly all of contemporary Christianity and is used to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The holiday often involves a church service at sunrise, a feast which includes an "Easter Ham", decorated eggs and stories about rabbits.

Those who love truth learn to ask questions, and many questions must be asked regarding the holiday of Easter.

Is it truly the day when Jesus arose from the dead? Where did all of the strange customs come from, which have nothing to do with the resurrection of our Saviour?

The purpose of this tract is to help answer those questions, and to help those who seek truth to draw their own conclusions.

The first thing we must understand is that professing Christians were not the only ones who celebrated a festival called "Easter."

http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/tract1.html

snip-

What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears the Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people of Ninevah, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments is Ishtar.

Source: The Two Babylons, by the Rev. Alexander Hislop, published 1943 and 1959 in the U.S. by Loizeaux Brothers, Neptune, New Jersey, page 103.



snip- more here-

http://biblelight.net/easter.htm

snip- scroll down -


The Vernal Equinox

The pagan at this time of year would be celebrating the increasing of the Sun following the spring (vernal) equinox. That is the day on which the amount of darkness and daylight are the same in duration. Following that day the amount of daylight would steadily increase, a little each day. This increase of daylight in the spring brings about summer and makes crops thrive, thus the association with fertility (eggs, rabbits, chickens). Hence the association always to Sunday, to celebrate the increasing of the God of the Sun on the Sun Day.

One might respond with- well, yes this is all true, but we have "baptized" this admittedly pagan day and made it holy to God, so there is really no problem. Please note the following-

Exo 32:4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
Exo 32:5 And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD.
Exo 32:6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.

Aaron made a pagan golden calf, and then declared a festival to the Lord! The people brought offerings, had plenty to eat and drink, and made merry in celebration. Was God pleased by all this? Better yet, was God pleased by any of this? NO! Their feast was an abomination before the Lord. (Moses ground up the golden idol to powder and made the people drink it, Exo 32:20.) Today many of God's professed people turn themselves East to the rising Sun, on a Pagan Sun Day that has no biblical foundation what-so-ever, have Easter egg hunts, baskets full of candy, and sumptuous meals (usually including a ham, a biblically unclean and forbidden food) and call it a festival to the risen Lord. Just what do you think Moses would have to say to us today about all of this? Can you picture Moses joining in the fun and festivities? Aaron maybe, Moses... I think not.

So in conclusion, it should now be quite plain that the day of the year celebrated by Christianity as "Easter" is based only on nothing more than Sun worshipping paganism and unbiblical decrees of the Roman Catholic Church. Why then, does the "Bible Only" Protestant Christian observe it at all? Is this not a contradiction between profession and practice of truly monumental, ... nay, stupifying proportions? Indeed, I believe it is. Despite their good intentions, and mostly in ignorance, they are in fact celebrating the risen Sun, not the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

snip-

http://biblelight.net/easter.htm

for discussion and educational purposes-