The word Easter can start an argument among Christians very quickly. One family uses it for a day devoted to Christ’s resurrection, another prefers Resurrection Sunday, and another avoids the annual observance altogether. I believe we need to begin with what Scripture actually commands before deciding that one of these choices proves someone’s faithfulness or lack of it. We also need to tell the truth about the history we use to defend our position.
The Resurrection Is the Center
Jesus Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose bodily on the third day according to the Scriptures. Paul places those facts at the beginning of his summary of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15. Whatever we decide about the name of a holiday, the resurrection itself is something every Christian must believe and proclaim.
The Gospels describe people encountering the risen Jesus, not merely deciding that His influence would live on. The women found the tomb empty, and Peter and John examined the burial cloths. The study on the resurrection grave clothes considers the evidence they found there.
Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene and stood among His disciples. He showed them His wounds and invited Thomas to examine them. Two disciples traveling to Emmaus spoke with Him before recognizing Him when He broke bread. He also ate with His disciples and taught them before sending them to proclaim repentance and forgiveness in His name. A Complete Bible Study on Post Resurrection Jesus and His Ascension follows His appearances and instructions.
Paul also named witnesses and reminded the Corinthians that most of the more than five hundred believers who had seen Jesus on one occasion were still alive when he wrote. His preaching concerned an event supported by living witnesses. The man who had been crucified was alive in a body people could see and touch. When some at Corinth denied the resurrection of the dead, Paul explained that their denial would also exclude Christ’s resurrection, with devastating consequences for their faith.
And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!
A Christianity that retains resurrection language while denying that Jesus actually rose cannot stand alongside Paul’s teaching. Christ is risen, so His people have a living Savior and a sure hope of being raised themselves.
I do not want disputes about names or customs to leave that claim in the background. Avoiding the word Easter does not make someone a believer in the risen Christ, and attending a crowded resurrection service does not mean someone has personally trusted Him. Before arguing about how the day should be observed, we need to understand and believe the gospel we are discussing.
What Scripture Commands Christians to Hold
The Lord gave His church definite responsibilities. We are to confess Him, preach His death and resurrection, baptize disciples, and teach them to obey His commands. In the Lord’s Supper, believers remember His body and blood and proclaim His death until He comes. Those responsibilities continue throughout the year, whether a congregation holds a special spring service or not.
The apostles did not reserve the resurrection for an annual occasion. Peter preached in Acts 2 that God had raised Jesus because death could not hold Him. Paul proclaimed the risen Christ in synagogues and before Gentiles. The resurrection belongs within the gospel itself, so a church that omits the annual observance still needs to teach it plainly. A church that observes it needs to keep teaching it after the special service is over.
An annual Easter feast does not have the same standing as the Lord’s Supper or baptism. The New Testament does not command it as a required observance, and Christians are not under Sinai as Israel’s national covenant. We should not introduce a new religious obligation and then accuse believers of disobeying Christ because they do not keep it.
That does not prevent a congregation from choosing a Sunday on which to give particular attention to the resurrection. Preaching a truth God commands us to proclaim is lawful on that Sunday as well as every other one. Choosing an occasion for that teaching does not make the occasion a new sacrament or give the annual date authority over someone’s conscience. The church needs to explain the difference between a useful arrangement and a command from the Lord.
Passover, Pascha, and the English Name
The biblical setting for Christ’s death and resurrection is Passover. Israel remembered how the lamb’s blood marked the houses and how God spared His people from death and brought them out of bondage. Paul explicitly connected Christ’s sacrifice with Passover in 1 Corinthians 5:7. We do not have to borrow a spring fertility explanation to understand why the crucifixion and resurrection occurred in this setting.
Jesus is the sinless Lamb who willingly shed His blood and died for our sins. Wicked men inflicted the physical punishment He bore in His innocent body. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus. His saving work through His blood and death was completed before He rose bodily from the grave. The resurrection does not make His death less real; the One who was killed and buried truly lives. A Complete Bible Study on the Passover follows that biblical connection in more detail.
Passover also explains the wording of Acts 12:4, where the King James Version uses the word Easter. The Greek word is pascha, the ordinary New Testament word for Passover or its festival period. The NKJV translates it “Passover,” and the preceding verse has already identified the Days of Unleavened Bread. Herod intended to wait until after that period before bringing Peter before the people. Luke was describing Herod’s plans, not instituting an annual Christian holiday or approving pagan worship.
Older English usage could apply Easter to the Paschal, or Passover, season. We can therefore explain the KJV’s wording without accusing its translators of deliberately inserting pagan worship into the Bible. The translation question is settled by examining the word and its context; an accusation about the translators’ faithfulness requires evidence that the presence of this English word does not supply.
The English name nevertheless has a history worth acknowledging. In the eighth century, Bede described an Old English month called Eosturmonath and connected its name with a goddess called Eostre, in whose honor feasts had been held. He said that Christians continued using the old month name for the Paschal season. His account concerns an English name and its earlier religious association. It does not describe eggs, hares, baskets, or a worldwide equinox religion. Bede’s explanation appears in chapter 15 of The Reckoning of Time.
Much of the Christian world uses names derived from Pascha instead. A family or church may prefer Resurrection Sunday because it says plainly what they intend to remember, or because they want to avoid the older associations of the English name. I respect that choice. But the history of a regional name cannot establish that Christ’s resurrection originated in pagan worship or that every Christian who uses the word is honoring Eostre.
History, Customs, and Honest Warnings
Christian observance of an annual Paschal occasion also predates Bede’s discussion of the English name. Eusebius preserved evidence of a second-century dispute about when Christians should end the Paschal fast and hold their observance. Some followed the fourteenth day of the month associated with Passover, regardless of the weekday; others insisted on the Lord’s Day, Sunday, in connection with the resurrection. Book 5, chapters 23–24, of his Church History records that disagreement. This is evidence of an early Christian observance and a controversy over its timing, not a biblical command to observe it.
The sequence is important when someone claims the entire observance began as an English fertility festival. Christians were already disputing its timing centuries before Bede wrote about Eosturmonath. We should distinguish the resurrection recorded in Scripture, the development of an annual Christian observance, and the English name later applied to it. Treating those as though they all had one origin produces a misleading accusation.
Later customs need their own examination. Eggs have been associated with life in different cultures, and Christian customs involving them also developed around fasting, gifts, and celebration. In medieval Christian practice, eggs could be prohibited during Lent, the season of fasting before Easter, and then eaten when the fast ended. That history helps explain some customs without proving that every use of an egg was either Christian worship or pagan worship. English Heritage’s account of Easter eggs describes the medieval fasting and gift customs.
The egg-hiding hare belongs to a later record. A 1682 account describes the custom in German-speaking regions, and the American tradition developed among German-speaking immigrants. The Library of Congress discussion of the Easter bunny examines that evidence and the much later conjectures connecting the hare with a goddess. The evidence does not establish a continuous line from an ancient Eostre cult to every modern egg hunt.
None of that turns rabbits, candy, baskets, or pastel decorations into biblical symbols of the resurrection. They do not explain the empty tomb, forgiveness of sins, or the promise of bodily resurrection. If the church’s message becomes a backdrop for entertainment, children and visitors may remember the treats while scarcely hearing why Christ died and rose. A custom does not have to be traced to a pagan temple before we can decide that it distracts from what we are trying to teach.
Idolatry requires a firmer response than choosing which decorations are useful. Deuteronomy 12 forbids Israel to imitate the nations’ worship and offer that imitation to the LORD. Second Corinthians 6 rejects fellowship between God’s people and idolatry. We should refuse actual false worship, occult practices, and superstitious claims that an egg or another created object provides spiritual protection. Calling those things Christian does not make them acceptable.
I also need to be honest when warning someone. If all I know is that a child has been given a chocolate egg, I do not yet know that the family has participated in a fertility rite. We need to ask what people are doing, what they are being taught, and whether the practice involves worship or superstition. Suspicion alone is insufficient grounds for accusing a fellow believer of idolatry. A parent can decline a custom because it distracts the family without inventing a historical claim to make that decision sound more forceful.
Days, Conscience, and Christian Love
Romans 14:5–6 addresses believers who differ about days. One esteems a day above another, while another regards every day alike. Each is to be convinced in his own mind and act toward the Lord. Paul tells both groups to honor the Lord without despising or condemning one another. Their responsibility to Christ governs both observance and abstention.
I understand that principle to apply where God has commanded neither an annual Easter observance nor abstention from every remembrance of the resurrection on that date. It cannot be used to permit idolatry, excuse superstition, or authorize a church to manufacture divine commands. But where the choice is lawful, a believer should not be pressured to act against his conscience or condemned for making a different choice.
Colossians 2:16–17 likewise warns against judgment over festivals, new moons, or sabbaths and directs believers to Christ, to whom those shadows point. Paul was protecting believers from religious demands that displaced their sufficiency in Him. We should not use a preferred date, or a refusal to keep that date, as a measure of whether another believer belongs to Christ.
First Corinthians 8–10 also prevents us from confusing ordinary things with participation in idolatry. Paul says an idol is nothing, yet he forbids fellowship with demons at an idolatrous table. Food can be received with thanksgiving, while a person must refuse involvement in false worship. He also requires believers to consider another person’s conscience and spiritual good rather than insist on everything they are free to do. Those instructions require us to examine the actual situation.
For example, a family may avoid eggs and bunnies because those customs distract them or because they cannot participate with a clear conscience before God. They should explain their decision to their children without teaching contempt for Christian neighbors who choose differently. Another family may use ordinary games or gifts without assigning religious meaning to them. They still need to distinguish play from worship and avoid presenting make-believe as truth. Parents should not let the fictional gift-giver become the main figure in what they present as a remembrance of Christ.
Neither family should treat conscience as permission to ignore Scripture. Refusing an annual observance does not remove our responsibility to rejoice in and proclaim the resurrection. Keeping it does not excuse superstition, indulgence, or letting purchases and entertainment crowd Christ out of the day. The same believer who can explain why an egg hunt is not necessarily idolatry should be willing to give it up if it is hindering his own household’s understanding of the gospel.
We also need to listen before judging what another believer means by Easter. One may be speaking only of Christ’s resurrection, while another hears an old religious association he wants to avoid. Using clearer language may help us speak together, but I cannot fairly decide what someone worships simply from a word when he is telling me that he means the risen Jesus. Nor should someone dismiss a sincere objection as foolish without hearing its reasons.
When a congregation holds a special service, some visitors may be especially willing to hear about Jesus. The church should use that opportunity to open Scripture and explain His death and resurrection. Replacing preaching with a performance would fail the people who have come to hear. People need a clear call to repentance and faith. Believers need to hear the hope of their own bodily resurrection. Those needs should govern the gathering more than the desire to put on an impressive event.
The Resurrection Gives Life and Hope
The resurrection also concerns the life a believer lives after the service. Romans 6 connects our identification with Christ’s death and resurrection to walking in newness of life. Water baptism follows salvation and publicly pictures that identification; the water does not cause someone to be born again. The believer belongs to the crucified and risen Lord and therefore has reason to refuse the sin from which Christ has delivered him.
Our hope reaches beyond the present life too. Romans 8:11 promises that the Spirit who raised Jesus will give life to believers’ mortal bodies. Paul calls the risen Christ the firstfruits in 1 Corinthians 15. The first part of a harvest anticipates what is still to be gathered; Christ’s resurrection guarantees the resurrection of His people. He did not merely survive in the disciples’ memories, and our future hope is more than an inspiring thought about life continuing somehow.
That hope does not require us to pretend grief is painless or death is harmless. Death is an enemy, but Christ has defeated it, and His people will not remain in the grave forever. His risen life also gives us reason to persevere in obedience now. Paul ends 1 Corinthians 15 by urging believers to remain steadfast in the Lord’s work because their labor is not in vain. The service God sees, including work that attracts no attention from anyone else, is worth continuing.
My Final Thoughts
I do not believe Scripture requires every Christian either to observe Easter or to reject it. We are required to believe and proclaim that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose bodily on the third day. A believer may abstain from the annual observance to keep a clear conscience, and another may gather on Resurrection Sunday to honor the Lord. Both need to speak truthfully, reject idolatry, and treat Christ’s people with love. I want our decisions about the day to serve our faithfulness to the risen Lord rather than become an excuse to neglect His commands or accuse one another without cause.