Easter Sunday, which is also called Pascha or Resurrection Sunday, occurs 40 days after Ash Wednesday (excluding Sundays).
Good Friday and Easter Sunday are two significant observation holidays in the Christian liturgical calendar. Without it, the Christian faith is meaningless, thus, Lent season is the holiest season in the Christian world. It gives deeper meaning to Christianity.
Easter Sunday is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It is described in the New Testament as having occurred on the third day of his burial following his Crucifixion by the Romans at Calvary c. 30 AD.
Significance
Based on the chronicles and Holy testament recorded by Early christians, Jesus Christ died at the time of the Jewish Passover festival, which dates back to 4,000 years when Jewish people remember how God saved them from slavery and persecution in Egypt.
Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday, so Easter Day became the first Sunday after Passover. But setting the day to commemorate this significant event wasn't easy and it passed through many debates during Early Christianity.
How Easter Sunday was set?
The English word Easter, which has roots in a German word, Ostern, has an uncertain origin. Other scholars claimed it derived from Eostre, or Eostrae, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring and fertility.
Fixing the date of Easter Sunday or when the Resurrection of Jesus was to be observed and celebrated, spawned a major controversy in early Christians.
The dispute known as Paschal controversy was not thoroughly dissolved until the 8th century.
In Asia Minor, now the present-day Damascus in Syria, Christians observed the Christ Crucifixion on the same day as Jewish Passover, on the 14th day of the first full moon of spring called 14 Nisan in the Jewish calendar.
The Resurrection, then, was observed two days later, regardless of the day of the week. Since the Crucifixion occurred in Friday, and so the Easter was set on Sunday. Which coincided the calendar in the West, where the Resurrection of Jesus was celebrated on the first day of the week, Sunday.
Consequently, Easter was always celebrated on the first Sunday after the 14th day of the month of Nisan. Increasingly, the churches opted for the Sunday celebration.
In the Christian Calendar, Easter follows Lent, the period of 40 days (not counting Sundays), starting on Ash Wednesday, before Easter, which traditionally observed by acts of penance and fasting.
The period signifies Jesus Christ's fasting period when He was resisting the temptations of the evil.
Easter is immediately preceded by Holy Week. Liturgically, Easter comes after the Great Vigil which falls between sunset on Black Saturday and sunrise on Easter Sunday.
Source: Brittanica Encyclopedia
Happy Easter Sunday!
May the re-birth of our Savior Jesus Christ bring you and your family harmony, endless prosperity, blessings and peace of mind. Alleluia! Christ has risen! Matthew 28:6
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