Hi, Martin, Perhaps I can answer your question.

Christians (excepting Susan and Hardi <g>) have mostly forgotten that what we celebrate is Passover. The word Easter [A.S. Eastre] is the name of a pagan goddess of spring and has no roots in Christianity. Easter is probably where we get the eggs, bunnies and other fertility symbols. The Christian name for the Feast Day of the Resurrection is Pascha, a Greek word meaning Passover. To Christians, Pascha is the new Passover. (Greek was the lingua franca of the Near East at the time of Christ and most of the New Testament was originally written in Greek.)

Remember that Christianity began as a sect of Judaism. The Jews were (are) expecting a Messiah. Those Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah didn't stop being Jews, they thought it was just the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. They would go to Temple on Friday evening along with everyone else but would stay after the usual services to offer additional prayers and chants that were being developed to honor the Messiah.

In the original Passover, the firstborn of Israel were saved from the Angel of Death by the blood of the lamb that was sacrificed for the purpose of marking the doors of the houses of Israel. In Christian theology, Christ is the Sacrifice—the Lamb of God—and it is through His blood that Christian believers are also “saved from death” through the promise of salvation. You recall that the Last Supper was thought to have been the last Sader of the Jewish Passover. The Christian Feast of the Resurrection is called Pascha (Passover) because it gives a renewed (Christian) meaning to the ancient Feast Day but the new meaning is very close to the original meaning, salvation from death through the Blood of the Lamb.

When the Apostle Paul came along, he evidently found it was pretty tough attracting converts if they first had to be circumcised as Jews. And since many Jews did not accept Jesus as the Messiah, Christianity developed the idea that the Christian Church was the “New Israel.” Over time, Christians stopped celebrating the Jewish Passover altogether, keeping only Holy Pascha, the New Passover in its place.

As far as I know, there is no reason why Christians couldn't also celebrate the Jewish Passover today; at least those Christians who still feel some connection with Judaism. The term Christianity is now applied to groups with widely divergent beliefs and sadly, as we've seen, some of them are even anti-Semitic.

Hope this helps.

      - Mark