Should Believers Avoid Mixing Easter Traditions with Pagan Roots?

Every spring, the aisles of American stores transform into a pastel wonderland of chocolate bunnies, plastic eggs, and marshmallow chicks. Churches plan sunrise services and egg hunts. Families gather for ham dinners and children's baskets overflow with candy. And somewhere in all of this, the resurrection of Jesus (YHWShA) is supposed to be celebrated. The question arises, quietly for some and urgently for others: What does any of this have to do with the empty tomb? More pointedly, should followers of Alohim distance themselves from practices that trace their lineage to pre-Christian fertility rites?

I remember asking something similar as a teenager, fresh from a Catholic upbringing where Easter meant new clothes, Mass, and family dinner. Later, in Pentecostal circles, the question became sharper. Some pastors preached against the "pagan corruption" of biblical faith. Others shrugged it off as cultural fluff, harmless enough if your heart was in the right place. Neither answer satisfied me then. Neither satisfies me now.

The issue is not whether chocolate eggs will damn your soul. The issue is coherence. Can a faith rooted in the story of Israel's Alohim, the resurrection of the Messiah, and the renewal of all creation accommodate symbols and practices borrowed from religions that worshiped spring goddesses and fertility? Or does such borrowing dilute the very thing being celebrated?

The Historical Question

Let us start with what we can establish. The English word "Easter" likely derives from "Ēostre," an Anglo-Saxon goddess mentioned by the Venerable Bede in the 8th century. Bede, writing in De tempore ratorum, claimed that April was called "Ēosturmōnaþ" among the Anglo-Saxons, named for this goddess whose feast they celebrated during that month. This is, however, the only surviving reference to Ēostre in ancient literature. No inscriptions. No temples. No myths about her exploits. Just Bede's passing comment.

Some scholars have questioned whether Ēostre was a widely recognized deity or a localized figure, perhaps even Bede's own inference from the month's name. The linguistic evidence does connect "Easter" to the Proto-Indo-European root h₂éwsōs, meaning "dawn," which also gives us the Greek Eos and the Roman Aurora. These were goddesses of the dawn, not specifically of spring or fertility, though such associations naturally followed.

What we know with greater certainty is that the early followers of Jesus celebrated his resurrection in connection with Passover, calling it Pascha (from the Hebrew Pesach). The observance was deeply Jewish, tied to the Exodus narrative and the liberation of Israel. When the faith spread into Europe, it encountered spring festivals celebrating renewal after winter. Local customs involving eggs (symbols of new life) and rabbits (symbols of fertility) were gradually absorbed into Christian practice, reinterpreted to point toward resurrection and rebirth in the Messiah.

The early church fathers wrestled with this. Tertullian warned against Christians participating in pagan festivals, arguing that even seemingly innocent customs could compromise the distinctiveness of Christian worship. Augustine took a more measured approach, suggesting that cultural forms could be repurposed if their meaning was fundamentally transformed. The debate was real and sustained, not some modern invention.

Now, one might say the later approach was simply wise contextualization. The gospel took root in new soil and expressed itself through available cultural forms. Perhaps. But here is the problem: when you borrow symbols from one story to illustrate another, you risk telling a different story altogether.

The Theological Problem

The God (YHWH) of Israel did not reveal himself as a spring deity cycling through death and rebirth with the seasons. He revealed himself as the creator of all seasons, the one who speaks and reality responds, who makes covenants and keeps them, who raises the dead not because fertility requires it but because justice demands it and love wills it.

The resurrection of YHWShA was not the earth's annual awakening from winter slumber. It was the decisive victory over death itself, the firstfruits of new creation, the vindication of Israel's Messiah and the hope of all humanity. And the early Christians knew this because they understood resurrection within the categories of Second Temple Judaism, not Greco-Roman nature religion.

When the prophet Ezekiel saw the valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37), he was not describing spring. He was describing the restoration of Israel after exile, the revival of a dead nation through the breath of Alohim. When Daniel spoke of the resurrection of the dead (Daniel 12:2), he was pointing to the age to come, when Alohim would vindicate the righteous and judge the wicked. This was linear history moving toward a climax, not cyclical nature endlessly repeating.

The first Christians inherited this framework. When Paul writes to the Corinthians about resurrection (1 Corinthians 15), he is not subtle about what he means. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. The resurrection is a historical event upon which everything hinges. It happened once. It changed everything. And it inaugurated the age to come, the new creation that has broken into the old world like a seed splitting winter ground.

This is what theologians call the "already/not yet" tension. The resurrection has already happened. New creation has already begun. Death has already been defeated. But we do not yet see the full renewal of all things. We live between the ages, citizens of a kingdom that is here but not yet consummated. This is not the rhythm of the seasons. Spring always comes after winter because that is how creation works. But resurrection came because Alohim acted in history to do something new, something that overturns death itself rather than merely pausing it for another cycle.

When we dress this singular, unrepeatable event in the garb of seasonal fertility rites, we risk reducing it to myth. Not myth in the cheap modern sense of "made-up story," but myth in the ancient sense: the eternal return, the cycle that repeats endlessly, spring always following winter, life always emerging from death as a matter of course. This is precisely what the resurrection is not.

Of course, one might object that modern Christians using Easter eggs hardly worship fertility goddesses. The symbols have been emptied of their original meaning and refilled with Christian content. The egg represents the empty tomb, we tell our children. The rabbit symbolizes abundant life in Christ. Fair enough, intentions matter. But symbols carry histories, and histories carry power. When the people of Israel stood at the edge of Canaan, they were warned not to inquire after the worship practices of the nations they were displacing (Deuteronomy 12:30-31).

The prohibition was not because Alohim feared competition from Baal or Asherah. The prohibition was because adopting the forms of pagan worship would inevitably shape their understanding of who Alohim was. You cannot borrow the vocabulary of fertility cults to celebrate the resurrection and expect the message to remain unchanged. Language shapes thought. Symbols shape imagination. And imagination shapes worship.

A Personal Reckoning

I did not come to these questions through academic study alone. I came to them through confusion, the kind that grows when you realize people you respect deeply disagree about something fundamental. In my Catholic childhood, Easter meant something, though I could not have articulated what. The lilies, the music, the sense that something momentous had occurred. In my Pentecostal years, I encountered people who rejected Easter entirely, calling it pagan and celebrating only Passover. They had a point, though their zeal sometimes outpaced their charity.

What struck me most was the disconnect. Here were serious believers, committed to Scripture, arriving at opposite conclusions about how to commemorate the most important event in Christian faith. Some said context matters more than origins. Others said origins contaminate context. And I found myself wondering whether the answer might be more complex than either position allowed.

The problem, I came to see, was not merely historical but hermeneutical. How do we read the warning against adopting pagan practices in light of two millennia of Christian tradition? Some argue that once a symbol is baptized into Christian use, its pagan origins no longer matter. The water of baptism washes away the old associations, leaving only the new meaning. Others insist that pollution is pollution, regardless of how you rebrand it.

Both positions have merit. Both have weaknesses. Neither, it seems to me, grapples seriously enough with what worship is actually doing.

How Worship Forms a People

Worship is not merely mental assent to propositions. It is the reenactment of a story through symbol, word, and gesture. When we gather to remember the resurrection, we are not simply recalling a fact, though we are doing that. We are participating in the reality that fact inaugurated. We are declaring that death has been defeated, that new creation has begun, that the powers that enslave humanity have been put on notice.

This is why the early Christians met on the first day of the week rather than the Sabbath. They were not rejecting the Sabbath. They were acknowledging that something new had broken in. Resurrection day became the day of gathering because the resurrection was not just an event to remember but a reality to embody. Every Sunday was a little Easter, a weekly reminder that the age to come had arrived.

Now think about what happens when a community's worship practices tell a different story than the one they claim to believe. Imagine a church that proclaims resurrection as the definitive defeat of death but frames the celebration in symbols borrowed from seasonal fertility rites. The cognitive dissonance creates confusion. Is resurrection a unique historical event or the religious version of spring? Is Jesus the risen Lord or just another dying-and-rising god like Tammuz or Osiris?

The symbols we use shape the people we become. Liturgy forms imagination. And imagination determines how we understand reality. This is not abstract theorizing. This is how human beings actually work. We are creatures who think in stories and pictures, not just propositions. When the pictures do not match the propositions, something breaks down.

The question, then, is whether our symbols and practices embody the reality of resurrection or obscure it. Whether they form us into people who believe death has been defeated once-for-all or people who think life just naturally triumphs over death every spring.

Faithful Celebration

So what are believers to do? Abandon Easter entirely? Celebrate only Passover? Strip the day of all cultural trappings and observe it in austere simplicity?

Here is what I am not saying: I am not saying that families who enjoy Easter egg hunts are compromising their faith. I am not saying that churches who plan festive celebrations are sliding into paganism. And I am certainly not saying that we can or should excise all cultural influence from our worship. That is neither possible nor desirable. The gospel always takes on flesh in particular cultures, and culture always involves symbol, story, and practice.

What I am saying is that thoughtfulness is required. We ought to ask what our practices communicate. We ought to consider whether the symbols we employ illuminate or obscure the resurrection. We ought to be honest about where these traditions came from and what they originally meant. And we ought to be willing to let them go if they distract from what we are actually celebrating.

For some, this might mean focusing family Easter gatherings on the biblical narrative: reading the passion accounts, discussing the empty tomb, reflecting on what resurrection means for our lives and for the world. It might mean explaining to children that we celebrate because Jesus walked out of that tomb alive, not because spring has arrived. It might mean spending less time on baskets and candy and more time on the scandalous claim that a crucified Jewish teacher conquered death and vindicated the purposes of Alohim.

For others, it might mean retaining some cultural customs but framing them explicitly within the larger story. The egg hunt becomes a search for what was lost and found, a picture of seeking the Lord who hides himself only to be discovered by those who search. The chocolate bunny becomes a springtime treat, nothing more, clearly distinguished from the substance of what we celebrate. The key is clarity about what is gospel and what is garnish.

For still others, it might mean rejecting Easter language altogether in favor of Resurrection Sunday or even Pascha, reconnecting the celebration to its Jewish roots. It might mean celebrating with a Passover Seder that explicitly connects the Exodus to the resurrection, showing how Jesus is the Lamb whose blood delivers from death. It might mean structuring the entire observance around 1 Corinthians 15, Paul's great resurrection chapter, reading it aloud and unpacking its claims.

There is no single answer that applies to every believer in every context. But there is a principle that applies to all: worship Alohim in spirit and truth (John 4:24). Spirit and truth. Not spirit alone, as if sincerity were sufficient regardless of content. Not truth alone, as if correctness of doctrine mattered apart from the disposition of the heart. Both. Always both.

And here is something else worth pondering. The resurrection was witnessed first by women, announced first to the marginalized, believed first by those the world counted as nothing. It was vindication not just of Jesus but of Alohim's upside-down kingdom, where the last are first and the dead are raised. When we celebrate it, we are not just remembering a miracle. We are declaring allegiance to a kingdom that operates by different rules than the powers of this age.

Does our celebration reflect that? Do our practices embody the radical reordering of reality that resurrection represents? Or have we domesticated it, turned it into a spring festival with a religious veneer, comfortable and culturally acceptable?

These are hard questions. I do not pretend to have all the answers. But I know this: the people who first proclaimed the resurrection were willing to die for it precisely because they understood it was not business as usual. It was not nature taking its course. It was Alohim intervening in history to make all things new.

The Invitation That Remains

The early followers of Jesus faced this question in acute form. They were Jews who believed the resurrection vindicated their Messiah and inaugurated the age to come. They gathered on the first day of the week rather than the seventh. They continued to celebrate Passover but infused it with new meaning, seeing in the unleavened bread and the wine the body and blood of the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. They welcomed Gentiles into the family of Alohim without requiring full conversion to Judaism. And they argued, sometimes fiercely, about how much of the old wineskins could hold the new wine.

We are their heirs. We face similar questions, if in different forms. The story we tell is the same: Alohim created the world, humanity rebelled, Israel was called to be a light to the nations, that mission culminated in the Messiah, and through his death and resurrection, new creation has broken into the old. Everything we do in worship either serves that story or subverts it.

The question about Easter traditions, then, is ultimately a question about narrative coherence. Do our symbols reinforce the biblical story or smuggle in competing narratives? Do our practices point people toward the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, revealed fully in Jesus the Messiah? Or do they, however unintentionally, suggest that resurrection is just spring by another name, that new life is simply what happens when winter ends?

Perhaps this season is an opportunity. Not to condemn those who celebrate differently. Not to impose uniform practices on diverse communities. But to reflect on what we are actually doing when we gather to remember the empty tomb. To ask whether our worship forms us into people who believe death has been defeated and new creation has begun. To consider whether the symbols we employ help us tell that story or muddy it.

You may find, as I did, that the answer is more complex than you expected. You may discover that some traditions you thought essential are actually optional, while some you dismissed as fluff touch something deep. You may realize that the most important question is not whether eggs and bunnies are permissible but whether your celebration draws you and others toward the God who raises the dead.

The resurrection happened. History pivoted on that Sunday morning in Jerusalem. The tomb stands empty, not because spring came but because Alohim acted. And the invitation to participate in new creation remains open, not just for a season but for all who will embrace the risen Lord and the kingdom he inaugurated.

How we choose to mark that reality matters. Not because Alohim needs our rituals to be pure. But because we need our rituals to be true. To tell the right story. To shape us into a people who know that the world has been remade and that we are called to live in the light of that remaking, citizens of a kingdom that does not rise and fall with the seasons but endures forever.

That is the celebration worth preserving. Everything else, however charming or traditional, is negotiable.