The world has high jacked both Christmas and Easter with encouragement to spend unlimited money on chocolate. It seems indicative of the way that retailers have commandeered the market on Christian festivals. The trend continues and gathers pace as the way we live reflects the philosophy of the world at large.
Easter comes near the time of the spring equinox on March 21st when the length of the day and night are equal. Throughout history, many ancient cultures have celebrated this as a time of birth and renewal, following the darkness of the long winter. Historians have traced the origin of the word Easter to the Scandinavian word ‘Ostra’ and the Germanic ‘Ostern’ or ‘Eastre’. Both of these derive from the names of mythological goddesses of spring and fertility, for whom festivals were held at the time of the Spring Equinox.
Current symbols of Easter, such as the egg and the bunny, have their origins in paganism. Rabbits were the most potent symbol of fertility and the egg, the start of all life, was often thought to have magical powers. Modern-day pagans continue to celebrate the coming of spring as part of a seasonal cycle known as the ‘wheel of the year’. Some pagans carry out rituals at this time, such as symbolically planting seeds, and holding egg races and egg hunts.
The Christian Easter also falls near to the time of the Jewish festival of Passover or Pesach, one of the most important feasts in the Jewish calendar. Passover is a time of family gatherings and lavish meals called Seders, accompanied by special foods, songs and customs. It begins on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Nissan — which is usually April. Early Christians, some of whom were of Jewish origin, were influenced by stories of the coming of the Messiah as foretold by the Jewish prophets, and integrated the Christian Easter with the existing festival.
The date of Easter is not fixed, and always falls on the first Sunday following the full moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox, making it any time between March 22 and April 25. However, Christian churches in the East, closer to the birth of Christianity and in which old traditions were strong, observe Easter according to the date of the Passover.
Easter is the most important Christian festival, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his crucifixion. It follows Lent, a 40-day period of penitence beginning with Ash Wednesday and ending with Easter Sunday. The last week of Lent is Holy Week, which progresses according to the story of Jesus’ last days, through Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday (the Last Supper), Good Friday (the Crucifixion) and Easter Sunday (the Resurrection). It’s believed that early Christians may have gradually incorporated existing pagan influences into their religion in order to make it more acceptable and to prevent converts from being persecuted. Many Christians today give up chocolate for Lent.
The modern chocolate Easter egg with its smoothness, shape and flavour owes its progression to the two greatest developments in the history of chocolate – the invention of a press for separating cocoa butter from the cocoa bean by the Dutch inventor Van Houten in 1828 and the introduction of a pure cocoa by Cadbury Brothers in 1866. The Cadbury process made large quantities of cocoa butter available and this was the secret of making moulded chocolate or indeed, any fine eating chocolate.
The launch in 1905 of the famous Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Chocolate made a tremendous contribution to the Easter egg market. The popularity of this new kind of chocolate vastly increased sales of Easter eggs and did much to establish them as seasonal best sellers. Today the Easter egg market is predominantly milk chocolate.
The interesting point of contention is that when we open our Easter eggs, often there is nothing inside, and when they came to the tomb in the garden it was empty – there was nothing inside, Jesus had risen from the dead. They had great difficulty in first making empty Easter eggs, but our Father had no trouble is raising Jesus from the dead. He did the impossible, so every time you break open your egg, think of the empty tomb. That lesson is more important than the chocolate. The world always reverses truth; it calls the crooked straight, black white and bitter sweet. It tries to deny the resurrection of Christ but all round the world there comes a triumphant cry, he is risen, risen indeed. Oh YES!
