Despite its significance as a Christian holy day, many of the traditions and symbols that play a key role in “Resurrection Sunday”, actually have roots in the Jewish holy day of Passover. Indeed, some Christians eat hard boiled eggs, roast leg of lamb, fruit salad, and spring greens at their “Resurrection Sunday” feast, in remembrance of Jesus, the Pascha Lamb of God, who took away the world’s sins.
Many Christians insist upon the traditional Baked Ham with brown sugar glaze accompanied by spring vegetables and scalloped potatoes as part of the traditional “Resurrection Sunday” feast—along with hard boiled eggs dyed in spring flower colors.
Saint Bede the Venerable, the 6 century ce author of Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (“Ecclesiastical History of the English People”), maintained that the English word "Easter" comes from Eostre, or Eostrae, the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of spring, rebirth, and dawn. The famous folklorist and linguist, Jacob Grimm, is one of several scholars who took Bede at his word. In his 1835 book, Deutsche Mythologie, Grimm proposed that Anglo-Saxon Goddess “Eostre” was likely a local version of a more widespread Germanic Goddess, whom he named: “Ostara”.
Actually, the modern Neo-Pagan celebrations involving the Goddess Eostre/Ostara are held nearer to—or ideally on—the date of the Vernal Equinox in March. These modern Neo-Pagan celebrations usually involve eating hard-boiled chicken eggs, colored bright red. These eggs serve as symbols of rebirth and renewal. The red eggs—according to an allegedly old children’s story—are delivered by the Spring Hare or Ostre Hare. (The English phrase "as mad as a March hare" dates at least back as far as the 16 th century.) Other types of cooked eggs are sometimes eaten at the Neo-Pagan Feast of Eostre.
Others claim the Phoenix is somehow connected to the mystical golden-red Eostre egg. It is well known the Phoenix is a bird that cyclically burns to death and is reborn from its own ashes. For this reason, the Phoenix often serves as a symbol of renewal and rebirth.
The English word, Easter, which parallels the German word Ostern, is of uncertain origin. Thus some etymologists speculate from the Christian designation of Easter week as in albis, a Latin phrase that was mis-understood as the plural of alba: albis, meaning “dawn”, that became eostarum in Old High German, a precursor to the English language of today. Easter: Origin, History, Name, Facts, & Dates, Britannica-on-line updated March 31, 2021, accessed April 1, 2021.
Easter Sunday, April 4, 2021
Sources:
Stephen Winick, Ostara and the Hare: Not Ancient, but Not As Modern As Some Skeptics Think, April 28, 2016, accessed April 1, 2021.
Steena Joy, 'Nothing Christian about it': The symbolism of Easter Egg, March 31, 2021, accessed April 1, 2021.
Hans J. Hillerbrand, Easter: Origin, History, Name, Facts, & Dates, Britannica-on-line updated March 31, 2021, accessed April 1, 2021.