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THE HISTORY OF EASTER

Easter and Spring
Come March and the world around you gets geared up to go gaga on a festive spree. Some skeptics might shrug off the March madness fray, but can't beat the freak it rolls out of its season of rejuvenation, rejoice and renewal that ushers in with a basketful of new promises and gifts in galore. The nature discards its weary look to donn a brand new outfit. The shining sun showers its blissful warmth, as if, to thwart the frosted blanket which the winter wraps around us. The brook turns bubbly. The blooming tulips, the crocuses and the daffodils - all swayed by the cool southie breeze, bring back the vibe on earth.
What else can be a better day for fun and fiesta? To have your family reunited? Friendship and love renewed? And feelings shared?
Perhaps all these traits have made spring and celebrations almost synonymous. That too from the dawn of human history.
Even in the Greek mythology, Demeter and Persephone, convey the idea of a goddess returning seasonally from the nether regions to the light of the day. This is in conjunction with the vernal equinox, March 21, when nature is in resurrection after the winter.
Even Easter - the grand occasion that reminds you of the golden and crimson eggs and chocolate bunnies, the ho'cross buns, is also a spring time festival. As if the Almighty had chosen this glorious season for the death-resurrection and exaltation of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Although the Easter, as is celebrated by the Christians across the world to mark the great resurrection of Christ, as spring festival is rooted even earlier, long before the birth of Christ.
In fact, Easter is a convergence of the three traditions - Pagan, Hebrew and Christian.
According to St. Bede, an English historian of the early 8th century, Easter owes its origin to the old Teutonic mythology. It was derived from the name Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, to whom the month of April was dedicated. But the Easter festival, as celebrated today, is related more with the Hebrew tradition, the Jewish Passover. This is being celebrated during Nisan, the first month of the Hebrew lunar year.
The Jewish Passover under Moses commemorates Israel's deliverance from about 300 years of bondage in Egypt. The Christian celebration of Easter embodies a number of converging traditions with emphasis on the Jewish celebration of the Passover. It was in during this Passover in 30 AD Christ was crucified under the order of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate as the then Jewish high priests accused Jesus of blasphemy. The resurrection came three days later. The early Christians, many of them being brought up in Jewish tradition regarded Easter as a new feature of the Passover festival, a commemoration of the advent of the Messiah as foretold by the prophets and equanimous with the proclamation of the resurrection. So originally the death-resurrection-exaltation of Jesus was a unitive celebration on the Passover day. But in the 4th century Good Friday came to be observed as a separate occasion. And the Easter thereafter was devoted exclusively to the resurrection.
Churches in the West observe it on the first day of the full moon that occurs on or following the Spring equinox on March 21, it became a movable feast between March 21 and April 25.
Still some churches in the East observe Easter according to the date of the Passover festival.
The preparation takes off as early as on the Ash Wednesday from which the period of penitence in the Lentine begins. The Lentine and the Holy week end on the Easter Sunday, the day of resurrection.