Wednesday, April 11, 2001
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Wednesday, April 11, 2001 |
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How did the Easter bunny get into this? By AMY RILEY For most all of my life, I have experienced Easter as the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, as a Christian commemoration of victory over sin and death through the blood sacrifice of God's Son. Easter was always a family affair, with cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents all decked out in their Easter finery gathering on the front lawn for Easter pictures as our tummies called out for ham, potato salad, casseroles, and desserts. There was an Easter egg hunt after dinner, and gobs and gobs of candy from our Easter baskets that were filled in secret by a rabbit while we slept the night before. To this day, our family carries on each of these traditions. But how was it that these two events, a visit from a candy-bearing rabbit and the anniversary of Christ's resurrection, came to be celebrated on the same day? We may never know, but here's a general theory that seemed to emerge from a variety of sources. It seems that in the times prior to the emergence of Christianity, the Saxons celebrated the emergence of spring by holding an annual feast in honor of the ancient Teutonic goddess of spring, Eostre (spelled Eastre in some accounts). The hare and the rabbit, who were known to be very fertile animals, were seen as symbols of the new life that emerged each spring. The feast of Eastre happened to coincide with the time of year that early Christian converts observed their holy days of Passover and the resurrection of Christ. At a time when Christians were mortally persecuted for their religious beliefs, it was unwise to celebrate publicly, so the early missionaries encouraged Christians to celebrate in conjunction with the pagan feast of Eastre so as not to draw attention to themselves. The Christians used the term Easter, and transformed the holiday for believers from a pagan observance to a religious observance of Christ's resurrection. The tradition of the Easter bunny seemed to originate in Germany, first appearing in German writings in the 1500s. The Easter bunny represented a celebration of spring. The Easter bunny, or "Oschter Haws," would lay a nest of brightly colored eggs in the hats and bonnets of good boys and girls as a symbol of new life and the colors of spring. The tradition was introduced in to American folklore by German settlers in the 1700s, but was not widely practiced by Christians until after the Civil War, an apparent product of our unique cross-cultural assimilation process. The feast of Eastre and the Christian observance of Easter both represent the celebration of new life, the former an earthly, temporal life and the latter a spiritual, everlasting life. For me, one is a tradition and one is a belief; one is a cultural practice and one is a system for living. Whatever your view, it is difficult to wake up in the spring time and hear the birds singing, smell the plants and trees flowering, and "feel" your own sense of rebirth as you cast off all that is dead to embrace all that is living, and not think that these things are the handiwork of our Creator. Happy Easter. [Your comments are welcome at: ARileyFreePress@aol.com.]
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