The Sunday Mail
Ibo Foroma
On our calendar of events, Rastafarians do not celebrate Easter, as in the case of Christmas (Christ mass), the Nyabinghi Theocratic Order for certain.
The origins of Easter customs unveil as follows. The most widely practiced customs on Easter Sunday relate to the symbol of the rabbit (‘Easter bunny’) and the egg. As outlined previously, the rabbit was a symbol associated with Eostre, representing the beginning of Springtime.
Likewise, the egg has come to represent Spring, fertility and renewal. In Germanic Mythology, it is said that Ostara healed a wounded bird she found in the woods by changing it into a hare.
Still partially a bird, the hare showed its gratitude to the Goddess by laying eggs as gifts. The Encyclopedia Britannica clearly explains the pagan traditions associated with the egg: “The egg as a symbol of fertility and of renewed life goes back to the ancient Egyptians and Persians, who had also the custom of colouring and eating eggs during their spring festival.”
In ancient Egypt, an egg symbolised the sun, while for the Babylonians, the egg represents the hatching of the Venus Ishtar, who fell from heaven to the Euphrates.
In many Christian traditions, the custom of giving eggs at Easter celebrates new life. Christians remember that Jesus, after dying on the cross, rose from the dead, showing that life could win over death. For Christians the egg is a symbol of Jesus’ resurrection, as when they are cracked open, they stand for the empty tomb. Regardless of the very ancient origins of the symbol of the egg, most people agree that nothing symbolises renewal more perfectly than the egg. Round, endless, and full of the promise of life.
While many of the pagan customs associated with the celebration of Spring were at one stage practised alongside Christian Easter traditions, they eventually came to be absorbed within Christianity, as symbols of the resurrection of Jesus.
The first council of Nicaea (325 AD) established the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon (the Paschal Full Moon) following the March equinox. Sunday was specially chosen so as to reinforce Sun worship on this day already dedicated to the sun and reserved for similar purposes.
Notice what the Encyclopedia Britannica says about this transition: “There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament, or in the writings of the apostolic Fathers… The first Christians continued to observe the Jewish festivals, though in a new spirit, as commemorations of events which those festivals foreshadowed”. Easter substituted the festival for the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread.
“The Gentile Christians, on the other hand, unfettered by Jewish traditions, identified the first day of the week (Sunday) with the Resurrection, and kept the preceding Friday as the commemoration of the crucifixion, irrespective of the day of the month”.
Easter, a pagan festival with its pagan fertility symbols, replaced the God-ordained festivals that Jesus Christ, the Apostles and the early Church observed. But this did not happen immediately.
Not until A.D. 325 almost three centuries after Christ was crucified and resurrected was the matter settled. Regrettably, it was not settled on the basis of biblical truth, but on the basis of anti-Semitism and raw ecclesiastical and imperial power.
As the Encyclopedia Britannica further explains: “A final settlement of the dispute (over whether and when to keep Easter or Passover) was one among the other reasons which led Constantine (Roman Emperor) to summon the council of Nicaea in 325… The decision of the council was unanimous that Easter was to be kept on Sunday throughout the world, and ‘that none should there after follow the blindness of the Jews’”. Those who did choose to “follow the blindness of the Jews “ that is, who continued to keep the biblical festivals kept by Jesus Christ and the Apostles rather than the newly Christianized pagan Easter festival were systematically persecuted by the powerful church and state alliance of Constantine’s Roman Empire. With the power of the Empire behind it, Easter soon became entrenched as one of traditional Christianity’s most popular sacred celebrations.
Being strict vegetarians and extremely eco friendly, Rastafarians do not eat neither rabbits nor eggs. Indeed these creatures resemble life and fertility but killing and eating them obviously befits the whole agenda.
Again, there is nothing good about Good Friday, the son of man was crucified on this date, how good is that? Not to mention, in the early years of the Faith, innocent Dreadlocked Rastafarians were systematically terminated by militia and brutal forces of the British colonial regime in Jamaica on Good Friday. Hence ‘Good Friday’ is correctly identified as ‘Bad Friday’.
The bulk of the material used to compile this sweet insight was borrowed from an article by Jerold Aust titled “What are the real origins of Easter?” and “The origins of Easter” by April Holloway.
Happy Holidays.
