So, I am not quite sure why and who invented the egg thing at Easter. Nevertheless, I bought four dozen of eggs, colored them and pretended to be the "Easter Bunny" and placed them randomly on my neighbors yard.
Was kind of fun.
They still have children of that age.
But what does it mean? Fertility, spring, abundance?
For Christ's sake, he was nailed at a cross - so what about these eggs?
Sure the eggs are charming and the kids have fun. But is there a deeper meaning behind this?
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Many of our Christian celebrations adapted ancient roots of pagan festivals inherent in myths which evolved within later Christian traditions.
The early Christian church simply continued on with the traditional Jewish Passover festival which coincided with the time of Christ’s death. Much later it was renamed the “Resurrection festival’ before finally adopting the Easter festival name under the influence of the Romans who incorporated the older pagan ceremonies as Christendom spread.
An Easter egg under the older pagan festival was seen as the emergence of rebirth and fertility to mark the beginning of the new season, which, with the spread of Christianity in the first 300 years then adopted the egg to be symbolically representative of new life arising as consequence of Christ’s resurrection from the tomb. So the exchange of brightly colored Easter eggs was to celebrates both the emergence of new life (spring) and the resurrection Christ but also for the Jews to mark the time of the Jewish Passover.
All of our grandchildren came to our place yesterday searching for Easter eggs and eating hot cross buns – that goes back a long way but I tend to think the separate tripartite origins about the meanings of Easter are often lost.
Best wishes
Very good Lindsay, a fine overview.
I also thought of those delicately painted eggs mostly found in Russia. Each egg is a masterpiece of art.
As for Christ's deed, it is commonly not understood anymore, even in "religious" circles.
i trust lindsay's account. it sounds logical.
however, i'm certain eating a chocolate bunny isn't symbolic of eating the body of christ.
i like egg salad with lettuce on freshly baked whole wheat bread.
a virgin mary is a bloody mary without the alcohol. or tomato juice or v8 with some worcestershire and tabasco sauces to taste.
adding vodka breaks the virgin.
Lindsay got it perfectly in one but we should probably ask him to look into the chocolate connection. That one is still a mystery to me.
Chocolate has been around for a long time but for the most part was a drink derived from the various varieties of Cacao beans which can now be traced back to 1400 BC.
But it wasn’t until the 18th century that a discovery was made as to how to mix together ingredients which create a crude paste that could be moulded into solid chocolate.
The first solid chocolate Easter eggs were to emerge early in the mid 19th century in Europe but were soon followed by the hollow varieties.
However with the later discovery of modern chocolate making processes and mass production facilities chocolate Easter eggs gained popularly throughout the world at Easter time.
Best wishes
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