Easter

Easter Sunday, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is one of the most important events of the Christian ecclesiastical year. In the Eastern Orthodox churches, it is often considered even more important than Christmas. Christians, who believe in the divinity of Jesus, base this divinity in part on the miracles Jesus performed while he was on Earth and particularly on the culminating miracle of his resurrection from the dead on the third day after he was crucified. Jesus himself had foretold his resurrection to which there are many references in the New Testament, as well as in the prophecies of the Old Testament. Christians believe that the Resurrection was the fulfillment of those prophecies.

The story of the Resurrection is told by each of the four Gospels in the New Testament: Matthew 27:57–28:10; Mark 15:42–16:12; Luke 23:50–24:50; and John 19:38–20:30. According to the Gospel of Matthew, after Jesus died on the cross, Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy man who was a secret disciple of Jesus, obtained permission to bury him from Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator of Judea:

And Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock; and he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb, and departed.…Now after the sabbath, toward the dawn of [Sunday,] the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.…” So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. And behold Jesus met them and said, “Hail!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.” (Matt. 27:59–60; 28:1–10)

Each gospel presents a slightly different account of the Resurrection. The Gospel of Mark ends with an empty tomb and a messenger informing the women who have arrived that Jesus has risen and left and instructing them to tell his other followers, but fearful, the women say nothing. In the other three gospels, some of Jesus's followers encounter the risen Jesus at the tomb and he interacts with his disciples for a period of time. Some scholars believe the authors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were familiar with and may have adapted the Gospel of Mark.

Easter marks the culmination of Holy Week. For Christians throughout the world, the Feast of Easter, celebrating the risen Christ's victory over death, is the foundation of their faith: During the preceding Holy Week, Jesus suffered and died for humankind, thus offering all people hope of redemption. In Jesus's resurrection from the dead on the first Easter Sunday, Christians find reaffirmation of his divinity and hope for their own victory over death. This belief is expressed in the following eighteenth-century hymn by Charles Wesley (1707–88), often sung in Protestant churches during Easter services:

Christ the Lord is ris'n today, Alleluia! Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia! Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia! Sing, ye heav'ns, and earth reply, Alleluia! Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia! Where, O death, is now your sting? Alleluia! Dying once, He all doth save, Alleluia! Where our victory, O grave? Alleluia!

The subject of the timing of Easter has been controversial from the early centuries of the Church. Indeed, setting the date of Easter, and determining when it should fall in each future year, was an extremely complicated matter. As Good Friday and Easter were said to take place during the Jewish feast of Passover, any effort to establish the date of Easter was bound to be influenced to some extent by the Jewish calendar and by the lunar cycles on which the months of the Jewish calendar depend. However, the Julian calendar then in use by most Christians was a solar calendar (like today's Gregorian calendar, which succeeded it). In view of the natural incompatibility of the lunar and solar cycles, both of which were involved in calculating the date of Easter, there was a built-in difficulty in establishing the date to begin with.

The week-long Passover festival begins after sundown on the 14th day of the month of Nisan. Since the Resurrection took place during Passover, some early Christians, known as Quartodecimans, chose to observe Easter on the 14th of Nisan. In the Jewish calendar, this is a fixed date. As translated into terms of the Julian (and later the Gregorian) calendar, however, it appears as a movable feast whose date can vary widely from year to year. Further, in both calendars, the 14th of Nisan (or its Julian equivalent) could fall on any day of the week. Although this did not trouble the Quartodecimans, other early Christians felt strongly that Easter should always be celebrated on a Sunday, since according to the Bible that was the day of the actual resurrection. Much of what came to be known as the Easter Controversy centered on this difference of opinion, with the Quartodecimans ultimately overruled.

Other considerations also accounted for a lack of uniformity as to the date on which Christians observed Easter in the early centuries of the Church. One complicating factor was that astronomers in different centers of the Mediterranean world possessed differing degrees of astronomical knowledge or used different methods of calculation, and in consequence they achieved different results when attempting to compute the correct date for the observance of Easter.

Finally, the question of the date of Easter was taken up by the Council of Nicaea, presided over by Emperor Constantine, in CE 325. Although the exact wording of the Nicene ruling on Easter is uncertain, and some specifics remained to be agreed upon in later centuries, the council apparently did decide important elements of the rule that eventually predominated. The council's synodical letter, together with a letter from Emperor Constantine, indicates two decisions: that all Christians should thenceforth celebrate Easter together, after the fashion of the Roman and Alexandrian churches (whose reckonings were not fully identical at the time, however); and that the celebration of Easter should not coincide with the beginning of the Jewish Passover.

Both Eastern Orthodox and Western Christians have since cited the authority of the Nicene Council for their Easter rule, even though the dates on which they celebrate Easter usually differ, according to their somewhat different interpretations. This rule, as it came to be formulated, was that Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox. Some scholars assert that the Easter rule contained the additional stipulation that Easter must be observed after the beginning of Passover, in order to follow the biblical sequence of events. Western Christians, whose Easter can fall on any Sunday from March 22 to April 25, do not adhere to this additional requirement, while Eastern Orthodox churches do. The result is that, while the Eastern Orthodox Easter may coincide with the Western celebration in some years, it more frequently occurs from one to five weeks later than the Western feast.

In either case, Easter is a “movable” feast, whose date changes each year, in both West and East. It should be noted, however, that even though the date of Passover is not a factor in determining the date of Easter among Western Christians, it is generally agreed that there is more than a chronological link between the two feasts. Indeed, Easter is often referred to as “the Christian Passover.”

The dates of numerous Christian observances are determined by the date of Easter each year. The events leading up to the resurrection of Jesus are described in connection with Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. As for the difference in the Easter date between West and East, for many years there have been renewed attempts by some church leaders to set a date that would be acceptable to all Christians. One result of the Second Vatican Council, held under Roman Catholic auspices between 1962 and 1965, was the “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” indicating openness to such an idea.

The name Easter does not appear in the Bible, and the origin of the English word is uncertain. The Venerable Bede, the eighth-century English monk and scholar, suggested that the word may have derived from the Anglo-Saxon name of a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility, Eostre, or Eastre, whose symbol was the hare. Other possible derivations have been suggested as well. Certainly, people celebrated spring rites long before the time of Jesus, rejoicing that winter was dead and that spring had been reborn.

In the United States, Easter is a celebration with both sacred and secular traditions, whose origins have often been forgotten. The colored Easter eggs, used almost universally, derive from the fact that the egg was an ancient symbol of life and hence was deemed suitable for celebrating the resurrection. Furthermore, in many countries eggs were among the foods not permitted during Lent in the days when Lenten fasts were more rigid than now, and thus they were relished on Easter along with many other special foods. Dyeing and decorating eggs was particularly prevalent among the Christians of eastern Europe. If some children grow up with the strange idea of Easter bunnies laying Easter eggs, it is only because the fertility of the rabbit makes that animal a symbol of life also; this Germanic tradition dates back at least to the seventeenth century.

Bibliography

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Pope Paul VI. "A Declaration of the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican on Revision of the Calendar." Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, 4 Dec. 1963. Vatican.va, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist‗councils/ii‗vatican‗council/documents/vat-ii‗const‗19631204‗sacrosanctum-concilium‗en.html. Accessed 28 Apr. 2024.

Wesley, Charles. "211. Christ the Lord Is Risen Today." Revival Hymns and Choruses, edited by S. H. Tow, Bible-Presbyterian Banner, 1970. Hymnary.org, hymnary.org/hymn/RHC/211. Accessed 28 Apr. 2024.

Wyatt, Caroline. "Why Can’t the Date of Easter Be Fixed?" BBC News Magazine, 25 Mar. 2016, www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35880795. Accessed 28 Apr. 2024.