What is the significance of Easter?

Easter is the holiest festival in Christianity. It is celebrated in April usually. Before it comes Lent which last for 40 days. In Lent Christians give up some tasty food. A Christian can choose to give up chocolate, or meat or alcohol or anything. Instead some Christians gives money to charity and do not give up any tasty food. In Lent Christians are remembered how Jesus Christ fasted in the wild for 40 days.

Pancake Tuesday comes right before Lent. The proper name for this is Shrove Tuesday as in people were shriven as in purged of their sins. On Pancake Tuesday people ate all the tasty and fatty foods in the house that they would not be allowed to eat for the next 40 days. But not that Sundays do not count as Lent. So if you give up sugar for Lent for example you are allowed to eat it on Sundays during Lent.

Some countries celebrate carnival before lent. It comes from the Latin words carne vale meaning ”goodbye meat”. People would enjoy all the good things they were not going to be allowed during Lent. In the old days you could not get married during Lent.

Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Easter. Christians carry branches to represent palm trees. It commemorates the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and people laying down palm fronds in front of the donkey that Jesus rode.

After Palm Sunday is Holy Week. There are big parades in Spain in that week. It is used to be a very Catholic Christian country.

Western Churches (Catholic and Protestant) celebrated Easter a week before Eastern Orthodox Churches.

People go to church on Good Friday. It is a sad day and the church has all decoration removed. Good Friday is the only day of the year on which Christians are supposed to fast: adults are to eat only one small meal and there should be no meat. But a lot of Christians do not keep to this.

Good Friday is the day that Jesus was crucified. He died about 4 o clock in the afternoon. On Easter Saturday Jesus is dead. On Easter Sunday he rose from the dead about dawn. Jesus rose from the dead on the 3rd day. But he was dead for about 36 hours before he came back to life. Some people think he eas dead for 3 days: i.e. 72 hours.

Easter Monday is a day off school but there is no religious meaning to this.

Some say that when Jesus went to his mother the Virgin Mary she gave him an egg to eat. That is why people eat eggs at Easter. Then people started making chocolate eggs and called them Easter Eggs. People eat all the nice stuff that they did not eat during Lent.

In Orthodox Churches people greet each other with the phrase ‘Christ is risen’ and the reply is ‘he is truly risen.’ They carry on saying this instead of ‘hello’ until Pentecost. Orthodox Christians go to church late on Easter Saturday. When it comes to midnight it turns into Eastern Sunday and the priest joyfully announces ‘Christ is risen’.

The significance of Easter for Christians is that Jesus Christ was resurrected. That means he came back to life and has supernatural power. Christians believe that by dying on the Cross, Jesus paid for the sins of all people. Therefore, people who believe in Christianity can be forgiven for their sins and go to heaven.

Easter is a spring festival. It is about new life. Things are coming back. Lambs are born in April so people eat lamb and wild chickens start laying eggs again. Christianity grafted the festival onto a pagan spring festival.

The Easter Bunny is a later invention to make Easter more popular. Christians do not believe in the Easter Bunny. The idea of the Easter Bunny is a harmless make believe story to tell children to make like Easter. Painting Easter eggs and Easter egg hunts are just to make it fun.

Easter is more important than Christmas but less popular.

Easter is a movable feast. That means it does not take place on the same date each year. Its date is calculated by the lunisolar calendar. It roughly coincides with the Jewish Pesach (Passover) Festival. That is because Jesus was crucified just before Passover.