The egg is a microcosm of the physical and spiritual worlds. As the warmth of the mother gives life to the earth, so God gives life to mankind through his Son who burst the earthen tomb and rose from the dead. For Christians, faith in the Son of God replaced the cult of the earthly Sun, and the mystery of life was revealed in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Honoring the Resurrection, Christians decorated eggs as symbols of life eternal and exchanged them on Easter with the Paschal greeting, "Christ is Risen." In the 1890's this custom achieved new prominence when Tsar Alexandar III commissioned the first Imperial Easter Egg from the famous House of Faberge for his wife Tsarita Maria.