|
|
|
Home
About Us
Spiritual Growth
Training and
Support
Store
Donations
Contact Us
|
EASTERTIDE
Easter is the opening of the season of Eastertide. With the cry, “The Lord is risen; he is risen indeed”, the church celebrates the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The celebration of Christ’s resurrection continues for forty days, commencing with Easter itself and concluding with Ascension Sunday.
It is important to note that Easter is not the close of the Lenten season; it is the opening of the Easter season. Lent officially concludes at noon on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, as the church keeps vigil, awaiting Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.
Easter – the Feast of the Resurrection of Christ – is the greatest and oldest celebration of the Christian Church, both in the Western (Roman Catholic, Anglican and Protestant) and Eastern traditions. The long preparation of Lent and the resulting forty-day celebration of the resurrection following Good Friday indicate the central importance of Easter. It – and not Christmas – is the most important celebration of the Christian year.
The church has celebrated Easter and Eastertide in many ways. In the earliest church, catechumens were baptized early on Easter Day, joined the church and received their first holy communion. In the middle ages, the night before Easter was celebrated by the illumination of the churches awaiting the Day of Resurrection. In both the eastern churches and in many Reformation churches, the congregation would gather on Saturday night, as they waited for the dawn that would signal Christ’s resurrection. Picking up on the theme of awaiting the dawn, an Easter Sunrise Service was added to the church’s liturgy by the Moravians in the early eighteenth century, and that tradition spread across all of Christendom. The liturgical color for Easter is white.
What is the derivation of the name, “Easter”? The Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) stated that it comes from an Anglo-Saxon spring goddess, “Eostre”. There is no doubt that, like Christmas, the church “baptized” a pagan spring fertility holiday, adapting it to the celebration of the resurrection of Christ. The remnants of that pagan holiday are reflected today in “Easter bunnies” and “Easter eggs” – both reminders of fertility.
Unlike Christmas, the date for Easter is movable. It is determined by the Pascal Full Moon (or the date of the full moon in the latter part of March or in early April). Thus, Easter will fall in any given year between March 21 and April 25.