Easter Countdown

Easter Sunday celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ and is the most important feast of the Christian year. Its date moves each year, falling on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox.

History

Easter grew directly out of the earliest Christian communities, who commemorated the resurrection of Jesus in close connection with the Jewish festival of Passover. In its first centuries the feast was known as Pascha, a name drawn from the Hebrew Pesach, and this root still survives in the Easter word used across most of Europe. Christians in the eastern Mediterranean initially marked the day at the time of the Passover full moon, while others insisted it always fall on a Sunday, the weekly day of resurrection. This disagreement, called the Quartodeciman controversy, was resolved at the Council of Nicaea in 325, which ruled that Easter should fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. Church astronomers developed an elaborate system known as the computus to calculate the date years in advance. When much of the Western world adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1582, the reform refined these tables, but Orthodox churches kept the older Julian reckoning — the reason the two traditions often celebrate weeks apart. As Christianity spread across Europe, local spring customs gathered around the feast. The English name may derive from Ēostre, a season or dawn goddess mentioned by the monk Bede in the eighth century, while decorated eggs — an ancient emblem of new life — became linked to the celebration during the medieval period. The figure of the egg-bringing hare appears in German writings by the 1680s and travelled to America with immigrants. Mass-produced chocolate eggs arrived in the nineteenth century, and today Easter blends solemn worship with a wider springtime festival observed worldwide.

Meaning

For Christians, Easter is the spiritual summit of the entire year. It proclaims that death has been overcome and that hope is renewed, giving meaning to the fasting and reflection of the preceding season of Lent. The joy of Easter morning — expressed in bright vestments, flowers, music and the greeting that Christ is risen — carries a message of forgiveness, restoration and the promise of eternal life. Beyond its religious heart, Easter has become a warm family occasion and a celebration of spring itself. Shared meals, egg hunts and gatherings mark a moment of togetherness after the darker months, and its imagery of eggs, chicks and blossom speaks to anyone who welcomes the return of light and growth. In this way the feast holds both a profound sacred meaning and a gentle, universal sense of new beginnings.