Easter is the central feast in the Christian Liturgical year. It is told in the gospel that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Sunday.
Easter marks the end of Lent. Lent is a forty day fasting, prayer and penance. The last week of Lent is called Holy Week. This contains Good Friday, Commemorating the Crucifixion and the Death of Jesus. The Lamb is a used for a sign of the Crucifixion.
Easter is a movable feast. This means it is not a fixed date in the relation to the civil calendar. It occurs in the Spring in March or April. The method to determine the date for Easter Sunday is complex, based on the lunisolar calendar.
Easter customs vary across the christian world. By decorating eggs, egg hunts, the Easter Bunny. Customs like the egg hunt and the Easter Bunny extend from the domain of Church.
Sun rise service is in reflect to the gospel account of the woman coming to the tomb at dawn on the first day of the week. The tradition to sun rise service use to take place in the church cemetery, yard or at a nearby park.
Easter has extended beyond church. Such customs as Easter games, outfits, egg rolling, decorating eggs. Today's date Easter is commercially important with wide sales of greeting cards, chocolate eggs and bunnies, marshmallow eggs and bunnies, jelly beans, filling the Easter baskets and hiding the eggs and baskets.
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On one of my sleepless late night excursions around the television dial, Burt Wolf had a very informative special on Easter and the celebrations in regard to how they have changed from long ago to now. It was on the Food Network or one of the PBS stations. If you get a chance to find it, it is worth the 30 minutes of your time.
This is probably not as good as the show,KK, but Burt Wolf is great.
www.burtwolf.com/pdf/easter.pdf
It's pretty easy to determine the date of Easter (in most religions) it is the first Sunday after the first full Moon after the spring equinox. A co-worker is a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and the date they celebrate Easter is usually a week later, but not this year. I don't fully understand how they determine the date.
Cool, jed... that is the exact transcript! I do miss his eloquent, refined voice in the background! ;>
Great KK,glad you liked it. Check out the transcript I left you from on the Tony the tiger Wed comments.
I just saw where a group is saying the end of the world will be in 2011, May 12. They said the year 2012 is wrong. I am so tired of all this election crap and now the end of the world is earlier?!! And Obama is 'looking into' the gasoline crises. The whole world has gone nuts except me and thee and I'm beginning to have my doubts about thee. Sorry but that was my attempt to be funny. I'm just having a down day. BTW..Happy Easter to all you-all.
Sassa, don't give those end of the world whackjobs a second thought. I have survived so many "End of the World" days that I have totally lost count, predicted by a variety of religious loons, conspiracy nutjobs, the scientifically illiterate, the clinically insane, and the shrill booksellers.
Ha Ha that earlier comment from me sounds like a whack job!!! I'm better now. What happened? Who knows..maybe hormones. That's how my day goes...up..down..up..down. All better now. But I am going to max out my credit cards...just in case. He he
"Academic says Easter date can now be fixed:" http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/18/us-easter-date-idUSTRE73H2KM20110418
And the Last Supper happened on a Wednesday? Is nothing sacred anymore?
The world will end the day I die because you're all fig newtons of my imagination.
Do Atheists have a Holiday? I feel so left out. Ham at sis's so life is still good.
very beautifully written, thank you :)
Orbs, can I be an Oreo? I'm not fond of figs.
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