In this article I will attempt to explain the true meaning behind the Easter holiday for those who are unfamiliar with this Christian tradition and for new Christians who don’t fully understand the meaning and symbolism behind this celebration.
The following outline of Christian history is found in the Christian bible, containing 66 books (Catholic bibles contain a few more books) divided into Old and New Testaments. I had to skip over much detail to get to the heart of Easter, so please obtain a bible and read it in its entirety so you will understand fully the word of God. I would start with an easy to read version, like ESV which is written in modern language. For deep study, you can’t beat the King James Version, but it is written in old English language, so if English is your second language, I would recommend a version called English as a Second Language (ESL) Version. Many of these bible versions are available online for free, or you can download the Bible App on your phone.
Easter Day
One of the most confusing things about Easter, even for a lot of Christians is the date that Easter is celebrated. Easter always falls on a Sunday, but not the same date every year. Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday following the full Moon that occurs on or just after the spring (vernal) equinox, the day in which the North Pole begins to point back toward the Sun (in the Northern Hemisphere) and the day and night are nearly equal. Because of this the holiday can fall anywhere between March 22 and April 25.
But the Vernal Equinox does not fall on a fixed date it can fall on March 20 or 21 for the Northern Hemisphere, and September 22 or 23 for the Southern Hemisphere. Because of this, Western churches have fixed the date as March 21 for the purposes of determining Easter day.
Easter and the Jewish festival of Passover are tightly related as I will explain later, but they don’t always coincide because of a misalignment between Christian and Jewish Festival calendars.