Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out …from a different perspective
by Elinor Montgomery
March 29, 2013
Our newly self-appointed, religious pundit, Bill O’Reilly, announced the other night that Easter really is about rabbits and Easter eggs, and it is for the children; so it should not be up for grabs by those who do not want it celebrated in America.
Mr. O’Reilly is the author of a forth-coming book called “Killing Jesus”, which, I am afraid to say, will most definitely not be on my ‘must-have-list’. However, I do agree with him about Easter being a celebration for Easter eggs and Easter bunnies. It all comes straight from Babylonian paganism, and has nothing to do with the cross at all. Satan uses the celebration of Easter to demonize the work of Jesus on the cross.
It is a pagan spring festival celebrating new birth, about which the Puritans were most skeptical. In fact, there was no celebration of Easter in the original thirteen colonies of America, which claimed they had no king but King Jesus. It was not until after the Civil War, in 1870, that it became an American tradition for Christians, even though God commanded His people to have no union with the things of this world.
What is it that the Christians tell their children about an Easter bunny, which, supposedly, lays eggs as a symbol of fertility to the pagans, having nothing at all to do with the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ? How is it the Christians have no problem with sexual games played by the pagans of old, and simply rename them ‘Spring Break’ for their children, a time when sexual decadence is encouraged? It is made to look as though such a thing is acceptable, exciting and fun; but for those who choose not to participate, they are ridiculed, only to become victims of peer pressure for their abstinence from such decadence.
If one is unsure about the rabbit being used as a method of sexual symbolism, one can check it out with Hugh Hefner, the publisher of Playboy Magazine, as to why he uses the ‘bunny’ as his logo. The goddess of spring and fertility, Eostre had the hare as her symbol. Ishtar was another name for the goddess of fertility, as was Ashtoreth or Astarte, Baal’s wife, a name, which means ‘the woman that made towers’, taking us back to the tower of Babel. She was, in fact, Nimrod’s harlotrous mother/wife/widow, Semiramis, established as none other than the Ashtoreth of the Bible.
God calls Easter evil; Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, …and they forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtoreths [Easter] (Judges 2:11, 13). “…put away the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths from among you, and prepare your hearts for the Lord, and serve Him only…” So the children of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and served the Lord only (1 Samuel 7:3-4).
The egg was a sacred symbol of rebirth and fertility among the Babylonians, Druids, Egyptians and other pagan cultures. Dyed eggs were used as sacred offerings during the pagan spring season as symbols of the goddess Eostre, or Ishtar, as she was called in various cultures. There is also the pagan tradition of the bird, which wanted to be a rabbit, so the goddess Eostre turned it into a rabbit, which could still lay eggs – beautiful, colored ones for her.
As opposed to a pagan Easter celebration, the cross takes root in the celebration of the Passover for Israel, before the nation’s exodus from Egypt, when she began her journey to the Promised Land. Passover symbolized the blood of the Passover Lamb, Jesus, and His sacrifice on the cross, so that man could once more become a fruitful branch of the marriage bed, able to produce sons and daughters for God, born of the Spirit of Life and able to inherit the kingdom of heaven.
The Feast of Passover was transformed into Communion for the apostolic church the night before Christ’s crucifixion. With the breaking of bread Jesus told His apostles to eat of His body broken for them; and with the wine He said to drink of His blood shed for them as the New Covenant in His blood. His body represents truth, the Word made flesh. His blood is that of the second Adam, the crossover from the first born of man and the Spirit of life, to the second born of man and the Spirit of Life, sinless to His death, taking away the sin of all sons of Adam, who were entrapped by and captive to the spirit of death.
How can Christians be so deceived as to confuse rabbits and eggs with the cross? Where is their witness as the light to the world to the truth with whom they covenant, when they eat the bread of the communion table? They love to show up in church buildings around Easter time, so that they can cling to the name of Christian, but do they even comprehend what Jesus has to say regarding His true church? “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it (Matthew 16:25).”
If it is the pagan Easter celebration with rabbits and eggs you want, then God says, “So be it!” But if it is the work of Jesus on the cross you want, then choose to place the blood of the Lamb on the doorpost of your heart.
“For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul (Matthew 16:26)?”
Are you teaching your children the ‘Bill O’Reilly’ version of Easter, which is all about rabbits and Easter eggs, coming straight from the pagan religions of old? It is only the resurrection that can take us out of this death trap, we set for our children, and into the truth and the life, found in the message of the resurrection, which only Jesus, and no other man, can offer our next generation of young Americans.