As we prepare to celebrate Easter, many will refuse to partici | 🇺🇸👊🏻🇺🇸 Richard Citizen Journalist 🇺🇸👊🏻🇺🇸

As we prepare to celebrate Easter, many will refuse to participate, believing that it is a pagan tradition. I’d like to take a quick look at the tradition of Easter.

The question of why we decorate and hunt Easter eggs has several theories, but the one that makes the most sense to me is this.

The Easter egg is believed to symbolize new life and rebirth. Just as Christ emerged from the tomb, life springs forth from the eggs. The Christian custom of Easter eggs was adopted from Persian Nowruz tradition into the early Christians of Mesopotamia, who stained them with red colouring "in memory of the blood of Christ, shed at His crucifixion".

This ancient custom became a part of Easter celebrations. In the medieval period, eating eggs was forbidden during Lent (the 40 days before Easter) so on Easter Sunday, tucking into an egg was a real treat!

Easter eggs represent the empty tomb from which Jesus resurrected. Saturday before Easter known as Holy Saturday. In some denominations today, Paschal vigil is still observed where a service is held on Saturday morning or night. The service is similar to a Christmas Eve service. During the Paschal vigil, Scripture is read, candles are lit, and baptisms take place.
During the service, Easter eggs are handed out to symbolize Jesus’ resurrection: The hard shell represents the sealed tomb and the cracking of the egg represents Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.
While it might seem like a strange tradition to hand out Easter eggs in a church service, early Christians abstained from eating eggs and meat during Lent, a period of 40 days where Christians fast, repent, and pray to prepare for Easter. Therefore, Easter was the first time Christians could eat eggs.
As a symbol of Jesus’ tomb and resurrection, Christians developed different traditions surrounding Easter eggs.

Early Christian missionaries dyed the eggs different colors to represent different aspects of the Easter story. They used yellow to represent the resurrection, blue to represent love, and red to represent the blood of Christ. Sometimes, the missionaries would paint biblical scenes on the eggs and hide them. This is one of the earliest forms of the Easter egg hunt.

Early Christian missionaries hid Easter eggs painted with biblical scenes for children to find. The children would find the Easter eggs and tell the story associated with the paintings.

Therefore, early Easter egg hunts helped children learn about the significance of Easter.
One of the earliest Easter egg hunts that most resembles the modern Easter egg hunt can be traced to Martin Luther. Martin Luther was a key leader in the Protestant Reformatio. During this time, men would hide eggs for women and children to find. The joy the women and children experienced as they found eggs mirrored the joy the women felt when they found Jesus’ tomb empty and realized He had risen.

Just like early Easter egg hunts, we hide eggs for children to find. For our modern Easter egg hunts, we hide special goodies inside each egg. Therefore, when children open the Easter eggs to find their surprise inside, they experience happiness and joy—the same happiness and joy Jesus’ followers experienced when they heard the Good News of His resurrection.

I urge you to take this special day to spend time with your loved ones and treasure them, and take the time to remember the reason for this day.

With that, I wish you all a very happy and blessed Easter from Richard and the RCJ Admin team!

Saraphinarose

HE IS RISEN!