There are many Easter legends and no doubt you’ve heard them all. I found an interesting section of The Kansas City Star dated 1973 telling about them.
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The front page had 12 different crosses, each with a different meaning. The cross holds special meaning for Christians at Easter. They believe that it was on the cross that Jesus laid down His life that those who believe in him shall have eternal life. It’s a symbol of love, hope and faith.
The origin of Easter was seldom celebrated on Sunday by the first Christians. According to an eighth century English historian, called Venerable Bede, a Benedictine monk, the name comes from Eastra or Ostara, a German goddess of dawn or spring. Ancient European tribes held an annual spring festival in honor of the end of winter. When they became Christians many of the joyous customs were kept. St. Bede credits the ties with originating the symbol of the Easter rabbit. The people believed a rabbit always gave the goddess Estra a present of a brand new egg. The practice of giving eggs as gifts and eating them on Easter Sunday probably stayed in favor because eggs were forbidden during Lent. Easter was celebrated on the 14thof Nasin, (the Hebrew month) regardless of the day of the week. Christians insisted Easter be celebrated on Sunday, the day of the resurrection. In 325 A.D., The Nicene Council decided Easter should be observed by all Christians on the Sunday following the full moon of the Vernal equinox.
At one time the dogwood tree was as large as an oak and its wood hard and firm, a favorite timber of the cross. To be used for this purpose, distressed the tree, so Jesus made a promise that never again would this tree grow stalwart enough to be made into a cross, instead it would be slender, bent and twisted, the blossoms would be in the shape of a cross, at the edges of each petal would be nail prints and the heart of the flower would be as the crown of thorns.
Another legend is that it was the sad task of the hawthorn bush to supply the crown of thorns. It is a bush covered in the springtime with beautiful white blossoms, yet it has dangerously long, deceiving thorns which are capable of inflicting severe pain.
The legend of the first Robin is another one. One day, long ago, a little bird in Galilee saw a large crowd gathered around a man carrying a very heavy wooden cross. On the man’s head was a crown made from a thorn branch. The thorns were long and sharp. The little bird saw that the thorns were hurting the man. It wanted to help him, so it flew and took the longest sharpest thorn in his tiny beak. The bird tugged and pulled until the thorn snapped from the branch. Then a strange thing happened. A drop of blood fell onto the bird’s breast, staining it bright red. The stain never went away and so today the Robin proudly wears a red breast, because it helped a man named Jesus.
The legend of the Easter egg: One day a poor peddler went to the marketplace to sell a basket of eggs. He came upon a crowd mocking a man who staggered with a heavy cross on which he was about to be crucified. The peddler ran to his aid, leaving the basket of eggs by the roadside. When he returned, he found the eggs transformed into exquisite designs of bright colors. The man was Christ, and the peddler, Simon. And the eggs were to become the symbol of rebirth for all mankind.