Last Sunday was Easter. Easter is my favorite holiday. I recently saw a social media post in a group of other Christian women that the person was going to celebrate Jesus' Resurrection on the REAL anniversary date (some time in April), but that the rest of us could still celebrate using the Western calendar. Easter was March 31 this year, but Passover is not until April 22nd. I was annoyed by this woman's smug attitude, but also intrigued about this concept of how the date of Easter is determined every year. My immediate reaction by this woman's bold post was, "Don't we, as Christians, celebrate Jesus' resurrection every week? Maybe even everyday?" Why does it matter what date Easter is when we should be celebrating Jesus everyday.
I started doing the research on when the true date of Jesus’ Resurrection is so that I could let everyone else know in this blog post, but the information overwhelmed me. In the Gospel books of the Bible, we know that Jesus died during the Passover festival, which is an important annual Jewish celebration. Throughout the Gospels (the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), you will read about the timing of Jesus’s death and burial. If you study the book of Exodus, you will understand the original meaning of “Passover” to the Jewish people. My research also involves early church history, and the Council of Nicea. I am not going to tell you about all of that because I do not know enough. Now, you can do some research and get back to us!
This got me thinking: I used to wonder why everyone knew classic Christmas carols, but we didn't seem to have Easter carols. Then, I thought some more and realized that just about every song we sing in church IS about Easter. I should say, they are about Jesus dying for our sins and rising after death on the cross. Without Jesus having died and then risen from the dead on the third day, we would not be Christ followers today. We can sing of His love forever because He is forever. He conquered Death for us because He loves us, and wants to spend Eternity with us.
John 3:16-21 (English Standard Version)
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
2 Corinthians 5:14-15 (English Standard Version)
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
