Many Christians in Easton and around the world are celebrating Easter today, the first Sunday after the astronomical first full moon of spring. The sacred holiday commemorates Jesus’s resurrection and life. It can fall anywhere after the vernal equinox, from March 22 to April 25.
Eastern Orthodox Christians base their calculations on the Julian calendar. The Orthodox Christian date for Easter Sunday, the “Holy Pascha,” this year is May 5.
Officials during the first centuries of the church debated Easter’s timing since Passover’s dates change each year. By the fourth century, they agreed on the first Sunday after the full moon on or after the spring equinox.
Passover’s dates are pegged to the Hebrew calendar, based on the lunar cycle and starts when the moon is full. The seven-day observance commemorates the liberation of Jews from slavery in Egypt, as told in the Book of Exodus. When God unleashed the 10th plague, slaying the first-born of each Egyptian family, he “passed over” the homes of the Jews.
Passover often begins close to Easter this year but doesn’t start until sundown on April 22. The timing is thrown off by the shorter Hebrew calendar. Every few years, a leap month is added — an extra 29 days — to keep pace with the seasons. When this happens, it can push the date past the second full moon of spring, thus distancing Passover from Easter.
The New Testament Gospels describe the last meal Jesus shared with his apostles as taking place during Passover. The overall narrative is that after Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem early in the week, he and his disciples shared a Passover meal toward the end of the week. After what later became known as the Last Supper, Jesus was betrayed, arrested, tried, and then crucified.
On what would come to be known as Easter, Mary Magdalene; Mary, the mother of James, and other women with them discovered Jesus’s empty tomb. Many churches hold sunrise services since the women discovered Jesus’s resurrection at daybreak.
As the Gospel of Luke tells it, “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb, but when they entered they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
“While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you when he was still with you in Galilee?’ And they remembered his words.”
Jesus had told them the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again. He later revealed himself to the 11 disciples, who were startled and thought they were seeing a ghost. Then he opened their minds so they could understand.
““Peace be with you,” Jesus said to them. “This is what I told you when I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
Jesus used parables, short stories with profound meaning that everyone could understand, in his teachings. Some of his main themes are:
- Love God.
- Love your neighbor as yourself.
- Forgive those who have done you wrong.
- Love your enemies.
- Ask God’ s forgiveness for your sins.
- Jesus is the Messiah and was given the authority to forgive others.
- Repentance of our sins is essential.
- Don’t be hypocritical.
- Don’t judge others.
- The weak and the poor, not the rich and the powerful, shall inherit God’s kingdom.
Jesus’s teachings endure and serve as a guide for good-willed people of all faiths to follow and heed to help heal our hurting world.
