When Is Easter?
Christmas is December 25; Valentine’s
Day is February 14; Halloween is October 31 -- but when is Easter? Each year
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we
have to look at a calendar to find out when Easter is, for this moveable
feast can occur any time from March 22 to April 25. Why is this so?
The yearly celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection is the oldest feast
of the Christian Church, and the Resurrection has been the
central belief of the Christian faith from the beginning. As Paul said,
“if Christ is not risen, our preaching is in vain and we are a people
most miserable” (I Corinthians
The earliest Christians celebrated the Resurrection on the fourteenth
of Nisan (our March-April), the date of the Jewish Passover. Jewish
days were reckoned from evening to evening, so Jesus had celebrated
His Last Supper the evening of the Passover and was crucified the day
of the Passover. Early Christians celebrating the Passover worshiped
Jesus as the Paschal Lamb and Redeemer. |
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No
Quickie Christians
As more and more people were added to
the early Church, the Church began to organize training sessions for the new
converts or catechumens before they
were baptized. Sometimes the period of instruction would last two or three
years. The baptism of these catechumens was often scheduled for Easter Sunday,
with the baptismal candidates often fasting two or three days before. They held
a vigil Saturday night and at the sun’s first rays on Sunday eagerly
proclaimed, “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! ” After baptism the Christians
were given white robes to wear the following week to symbolize their new life
in Christ. The practices of the Lenten fast before Easter and wearing new
clothes on Easter Sunday had their beginnings in these catechumen customs.
Some
of the Gentile Christians began celebrating Easter in the nearest Sunday to the
Passover, since Jesus actually arose on a Sunday. This especially became the
case in the western part of the
Setting
the Date
During the first three centuries
of the Church, when believers were frequently under persecution, there was
little effort to establish uniform observances of the Christian festivals.
However, when
But
Which Calendar?
The ruling of the Council was not
immediately accepted everywhere. It did not sit well for those who had been
celebrating the Resurrection on the Passover to suddenly be declared heretics.
Confusion was also caused by
It’s the Meaning that Matters
In spite of the differences among
the churches surrounding the celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection, there has been
through the ages a unanimous agreement that the Resurrection is a most joyous
event and the basis of all Christian hope. As Francis Weiser beautifully wrote,
“Easter Sunday is a dazzling diamond that radiates the splendor of Redemption
and Resurrection into the hearts of the faithful everywhere. Its various facets
cast the brilliance of eternity over the twilight of time, and enrapture the
soul with the deathless pledge of a Second Spring. The keener are the eyes of
faith, the more penetrating is the vision of personal immortality behind the
veil of death: When Christ rose, Death itself died. ”