With the Christmas extravaganza now a distant memory, churches are busily gearing up for their next observance -- the celebration of the Messiah's death and resurrection.

As with Christmas, Easter is another major celebration that features an odd blend of Biblical, mythical, and irreligious themes: chalices, crosses, and colored eggs; bonnets, bunnies, and Bibles; hymns and hams; sun worship and Son worship.

The uninformed may think it peculiar that YEHOVAH God would require His people today to eat unleavened bread for a week following the Passover. Yet they find nothing weird about observing the Messiah's resurrection by searching church lawns and forests for painted and candied eggs -- supposedly laid by RABBITS!

Mythology and tradition aside for a moment, let's do our own search for the scriptural Easter, if there be one.

A peculiar fact jumps out immediately. In a careful examination of the Bible we discover the word Easter in only ONE verse and in just ONE translation: Acts 12:4 in the King James Version. It reads, "...intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people."

Notice how other versions translate this same passage:

"... meaning to produce him in public after Passover," New English Bible.

"... intending after the Passover to bring him forth to the people," The Webster Bible.

"...purposing after the Passover to bring him forth to the people," The Amplified New Testament.

"...intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover," The New Berkeley Version in Modern English.

".., intending, after the pasch, to bring him forth to the people," Douay-Rheims (Catholic).

In this last translation, "pasch" is simply the near Greek word for Passover, Pascha. "Passover" is found 28 times in the King James New Testament, Easter once!

Amazing, isn't it? Easter is the second biggest religious celebration of the Bible-professing world. Yet, its only scriptural evidence is one word erroneously translated one time in one version.

Apostles Not Dye Hards

You don't have to hunt deeply to learn that no one in the Scriptures ever observed Easter. Rather, even in the New Testament the Apostolic Assembly continued with the Biblical Holy Days commanded in Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23. The Messiah died at Passover as the ultimate PASSOVER sacrifice, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 5:7.

YEHOVAH's Feast days were the only observances that the early New Testament Assembly kept.

Theologians cite Acts 2 as the start of the New Testament Assembly. But they neglect the reason that the Apostles and disciples were gathered that day. It was in observance of the command in Leviticus 23 to keep the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) -- one of the seven annual holy days!

Nowhere can we find a Biblical injunction to observe the Messiah's resurrection as a special holiday. The command was and always will be to keep the memorial of his death at Passover.

This being the case, where did "Easter" originate?

Yeshua told his disciples that the poor we would always have with us. The same thing can be said of heathen worship, at least until YEHOVAH's righteous Kingdom is established on earth.

Before she was Eastre, the idol was called Ishtar (pronounced by the Assyrians and Babylonians as we do Easter).

Revelation tells us that Babylon is the mother of all false worship, and Revelation 14:8 says that Babylon caused all nations to partake in her spiritual unfaithfulness. Our society didn't escape Babylon's influence regarding the Easter observance, either.

Jeremiah condemns worship of this heathen queen mother in a rite that includes a practice remarkably similar to Easter:

"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 mighty ones, that they may provoke me to anger." (Jeremiah 7:18)

These "cakes" survive as today's hot cross buns -- an Easter tradition on which are marked crosses, the symbol for woman. In hieroglyphics the cross is a symbol for life. This ancient queen of heaven was the mother of life, the heathen believed.

Also prominent in the Easter celebration is the egg. The 1994 winter Olympics opened with a ceremony featuring a huge egg, ancient pagan symbol of life. Mithras, the sun god, supposedly hatched from a cosmic egg.

Pagan mythology says a mystic egg of the Babylonians fell from heaven into the River Euphrates. Once fish had pushed it ashore it hatched and out came Astarte-Easter (Venus). Hence, the egg became a symbol of Astarte or Easter. (The Two Babylons, p.109)

The egg soon figured into Christian Easter worship. According to Hislop, "A form of prayer was even appointed to be used in connection with it, Pope Paul V teaching his superstitious votaries thus to pray at Easter -- 'Bless, O LORD, we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance into thy servants, eating it in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ,' " p.110.

Imagine honoring Abraham Lincoln with Bingo parties. Or celebrating the first moon walk with a fishing derby. It makes as little sense to observe the resurrection of the Messiah with chocolate rabbits that lay colored eggs.

Why rabbits? They have nothing to do with the Messiah's death or resurrection. That is precisely the point. We are dealing with two entirely different observances that have intermixed to produce the strangest of crossbreeds -- not unlike remembering the Messiah's birth with Santa Claus, reindeer, and evergreen trees.

To understand why the rabbits, we need to go back again to a more ancient festival that in the apostate church merged with Passover to become the Easter hybrid.

"Her festival was celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox, and traditions associated with the festival survive in the familiar Easter bunny, symbol of the fertile rabbit, and in the equally familiar colored Easter eggs originally painted with gay hues to represent the sunlight of spring" ("Easter," Ibid, p. 2940).

In its effort to join heathen with Bible believer, the early church accommodated many pagan observances, finding common dates on which to merge. Easter and Passover is one example.

Try as they could, however, they could not detach the pagan dates from the pagan rites and rituals.

Scriptural Caution

The Easter sunrise service is common today. But how many who participate realize the ancient tradition they are really keeping alive -- adoration of the sun-god?

Ezekiel gives this sobering account of what YEHOVAH thinks of this custom employed in worship of Him:

"Then said he unto me, Have you seen this, O son of man? turn you yet again, and you shall see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of YEHOVAH's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of YEHOVAH between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of YEHOVAH, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east. Then he said unto me, Have you seen [this], O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose. Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, [yet] will I not hear them." (Ezekiel 8:15-18)

YEHOVAH God will one day teach mankind that He is the only true Mighty One. They will learn -- through plague, if necessary -- that pagan abominations will not be tolerated. And man will one day discover what True Worship is all about and what blessings can be his if he will only be obedient not to the world -- but to the Word.