Easter is one of the oldest and most important festivals in the Christian calendar. It celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ and is observed between March 22nd and April 25th, on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the northern spring equinox.
But Easter isn’t just a single-day celebration–and it’s certainly not a purely Christian invention. It’s a fusion of ancient rituals and layered traditions stretching back thousands of years. Many of the symbols we associate with Easter today–from eggs and bunnies to baskets and feasts–can trace their roots to older, non-Christian sources.
Baskets, Blessings, and the Spring Feast
Today’s Easter baskets are usually filled with chocolate, candy, and in North America, jelly beans. But their origins lie in a much older practice. In pre-modern Europe, rural communities celebrated the arrival of spring with feasting and ritual. Part of this included taking food to the local church in baskets to be blessed–a custom believed to bring prosperity and divine favour. Over time, this evolved into what we now recognize as the Easter Basket and its accompanying festive meal.
The Long Lead-Up to Easter
In many Christian denominations, especially Roman Catholicism, Easter is not a standalone day–it’s the high point of a season of observances. That season begins with Lent, a 40-day period of fasting, reflection, and sacrifice that starts on Ash Wednesday and leads through Holy Week, which includes Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday, before reaching Easter Sunday.
Lent doesn’t include Sundays, which is why the total span is actually 46 days. It concludes with the joyous Easter feast–a symbolic and literal breaking of the fast.
Eggs, Fertility, and Folklore
Long before Christianity, eggs were symbols of fertility, new life, and the return of the sun. Ancient Persians, Egyptians, and early Europeans used eggs in spring rituals to mark the season’s change.
With the rise of Christianity, eggs took on new meaning–symbolizing the sealed tomb of Christ, and then the miracle of the resurrection. In Orthodox tradition, eggs are dyed red to represent the blood of Christ.
A popular folk legend claims Mary Magdalene brought a red egg to the Roman Emperor Tiberius as a symbol of Christ’s rising. (Some mistakenly attribute an egg-related legend to the Virgin Mary, but this has no strong historical basis.)
Lilies and the Language of Flowers
White lilies have become an iconic Easter flower. They are often used to represent purity, hope, and the promise of new life. One tradition says that lilies bloomed in the Garden of Gethsemane, or near the foot of the cross, as a symbol of Jesus’s sacrifice and divine purpose.
The Bunny That Was Once a Hare
Before it became the chocolate-toting bunny we know today, the Easter Bunny was a hare–a creature associated with Ēostre, the Germanic goddess of spring and fertility. This connection was first noted by the English monk Bede in the 8th century, although some scholars question whether the goddess and her hare were ever widely worshipped.
What is clear is that rabbits, known for their prolific breeding, eventually replaced hares in most popular imagery. German immigrants brought the tradition of the “Osterhase” (Easter Hare) to North America in the 1700s, and the modern Easter Bunny was born.
A Global Celebration of Renewal
Easter is now celebrated around the world. Traditions vary from country to country, but common themes remain: life, renewal, rebirth, and resurrection. For Christians, it’s the foundational event of their faith. But even for many secular observers, Easter represents the symbolic end of winter and the rejuvenation that spring brings.
In that sense, Easter is more than a religious holiday–it’s a cultural marker of hope, change, and continuity, blending the ancient with the modern in a uniquely human way.
