Happy Easter!

 I am going off the top of my head this morning and not all of this is taught in traditional divinity schools, so please bear with me. 

The first Easter was celebrated by 2nd Century Christians, and in typical Christian form, the term Easter is "borrowed" from the Germanic word Ostern, and in typical German fashion, we don't know the origins of the word. 

That said, they believe that the word is stolen from the word Eostre which is the old Anglo-Saxon goddess of fertility. That was first linked in the 800s. 

There is now widespread belief that the word derives from the Christian term of Easter week as in albis, a Roman Latin phrase that was understood as the plural of alba (“dawn”) and became eostarum in High German the forerunner of the modern German and English term.( This was taught by Dr. Penrose St. Amant when I was in seminary....and yes, I dug out my old notes for this one.)

In all seriousness, who knows who is correct. The Christian community has always been one to appropriate other customs whether they are considered "pagan" or not. 

The date of Jesus’ death and resurrection was not recorded. As a result, Easter is not fixed. It can fall any time between March 22nd and April 25th. This is because Easter is linked to the Jewish Festival of Passover, which was taking place when Jesus died. The timing of Passover depends on the cycles of the moon. In the 4^th Century church leaders agreed that Easter would always be on the Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. But to add to the complexity, they referred to the mathematically, calculated ‘Paschal’ full moon( Passover full moon) which is not always the same day as when the moon appears full in the sky.....By the way, the next time Easter will be on March 22nd in 2285. ( I won't be around and I looked the date up.)

This of course is the day that the religion of Christianity is based upon.

I'm not going to go into the significance of rabbits, eggs, eating  lamb( No one coming here today for Easter would eat lamb with the exception of me. I got enough Coonass in me that I'll damn near eat anything, you got remember I ate lamb's liver and chips in Scotland) or this blog will be about 5500 words.  

We are having the "Southern" traditional " Big-ass ham" today. 

I hope you have a good day, enjoy family, friends if you are visiting, or you are entertaining. As always, you're in my prayers.