I LOVE Easter. I love getting an Easter Basket and hunting for eggs and most of all, the Reese's Peanut Butter egg. I look forward to them and they make me happy. I think my most favorite Easter basket was my Sophomore year of college when my family went on vacation for Spring Break and left me in Provo. Ya, it was awesome. However, my mom made me the best Easter basket of all time. It had lots of goodies, my favorite magazine (Self), easter pencils, sticky notes, the works. And I love the colored easter grass, there was, of course, easter grass.
This year Easter was good too, loved the Easter basket, loved not working on Sunday (the first Sunday I haven't worked since February 28th - yay!), and loved wearing my favorite pink dress - very Eastery. For dinner we had ham. Ham. Yes, ham. Why ham? I have no idea. Back in the day didn't they have lamb? Or sheep? When did we switch animals? Why did we switch animals? When I think of ham I think of Christmas, people have ham on Christmas - I also don't know why we have ham on Christmas but it's traditional and we do. But now we have ham on Easter too? Ham gets two holidays, that's a pretty big deal. Prime rib gets new years, corned beef gets St. Patrick's, chicken gets my birthday, hot dogs get the 4th of July, beef stew gets Halloween, and of course, turkey gets Thanksgiving. But why ham? Why Easter? I don
't get it. The others make sense, but I don't even like ham that much. I didn't know it was that significant. I guess I just missed the ham boat.
Ok, so I couldn't resist and I googled "Easter Ham Origin", this is what I found:
The Easter ham, and most other "Easter" traditions actually have their roots in Paganism and have nothing to do with Christian commemorations of the Resurrection of Jesus. Although Christianity observes Easter to acknowledge the Resurrection, most know it is not the actual day of this event.
Still, Paganistic rituals infiltrated the Christian Church and have become intermingled to the point of misconceptions. The word Easter is in the Bible only once and is used Acts chapter 12. There it tells that King Herod (an evil pagan) was preparing to participate in Easter rituals at the time of Peter's arrest. So Herod delayed bringing Peter forth for sentencing until the pagan rituals were over. (You can read this miraculous story in verses 1-19)
What were these rituals and where did they begin? Noah's grandson (Cush) and his wife Semiramis had a son named Nimrod. Reports say that after Cush's death, Nimrod married his own mother and became a mighty king. He too was eventually killed. His mother then began the deceit of deifying her son/husband, claiming he had become a "sun-god" (the origin of "Easter Sunrise services), and he was then to be called Baal. (Baal was worshipped as a god of fertility and promoted sexual sin.)
She proclaimed that the people of Babylon should worship him and that he was with them in the form of a flame. This wicked Queen, doing the work of Satan, was creating a new religion and set herself up as the goddess called "Ishtar." Hence the root of the pronunciation "Easter."
After she became pregnant, she bore a son named Tammuz claiming he was the product of a sunray, which caused her to conceive. But Tammuz grew to be a hunter and was later killed by a wild pig. "Ishtar" then designated a forty day period (the source of Lent) to mark the anniversary of Tammuz's death.
During this time, no meat was to be eaten. Every year, on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, a celebration was made. Ishtar also proclaimed that because a pig killed Tammuz, that a pig must be eaten on that Sunday.
This is of course a condensed version of all pagan beliefs originating Easter. Satan is a master deceiver, and has filled the world with idolatries, lies, and misconceptions. The Easter Ham and all else promoting the ancient pagan religion of Mystery Babylon (per "Ishtar") are customs of the false god, Baal.
