Catholics have been accused of wanting to bury Jesus right after He was born because of the close proximity of the Christmas season and the season of Lent. We just finish celebrating the Nativity and the next thing you know we start preparing for the Lenten season, which leads to Good Friday. In fact the proximity is closer than you think. The older tradition of celebrating Christmas used to go all the way to the Presentation of the Lord, the feast commemorating Mary’s and Joseph’s dedication of the Infant Jesus in the Temple 40 days after his birth. We celebrate that feast on February 2nd, which happens to be when the Vatican takes down their manger scenes and Christmas tree. So, this year at St. Peter’s in Rome the manger scene was taken down just ten days before Ash Wednesday: 2013 has a particularly early Easter.
Christmas is easy to remember. Who doesn’t know it is December 25th? But why is Easter so difficult? Conventional wisdom would have us believe that remembering the exact day of the year for the Resurrection of Christ should be simple. After all it’s the single most important event to have ever happened from the Christian perspective. But unlike Christmas and most other commemorations on the liturgical calendar, Easter is based on a lunar calendar. Its date is not based on a particular day of a particular month but on the moon. So how did we get here? How does the church establish the date of Easter from year to year?
Historical Background
The history of dating Easter is too complex for a single column, but suffice it to say from the Christian Catholic perspective it was set by the Council of Nicea in 325 AD to be the first Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. This means that Easter can be celebrated as early as March 22nd and as late as April 25th. Of course calendars have changed over the centuries, and different religions observe different dating systems. Easter is loosely connected to the date of Passover, but the Jewish calendar system is different from ours, so the two do not always coincide, and the Eastern Christian religions are still based on the old Julian calendar, so their dates also differ from ours.
One interesting note that came into play historically, when there were discussions about setting the date, was consideration of the multitudes of people who were making pilgrimages to the holy sites associated with Christ. Having Easter set near the full moon would give those pilgrims light for their travels at night. Hence, there was a practical side for the setting of the date as well.
Besides the date of Easter there are other common questions that come up that have less to do with the date than with other Easter customs.
About Those Eggs and Bunnies
The most popular tradition associated with Easter is of course the painting of Easter eggs, and before we condemn this practice as being totally secular we need to know that it started as a powerful symbol of the Easter message. Though the start of this tradition is unknown, we know it is very ancient. The egg symbolizes the tomb with the shell representing the door covering the tomb of Christ. The bird breaking out of the shell portrays new life coming from the tomb. In fact in early icons of Christ He often appears with a halo in the shape of an egg engulfing his whole body. Coloring the eggs is also an ancient custom, but the earliest practice was only to color them red to represent the blood of Christ. In the beginning of the 17th century Pope Paul V actually composed a prayer referencing Easter eggs!
Other than Christ and the biblical characters associated with the Resurrection the most popular figure associated with Easter is the Easter bunny, which also has its origin in religious symbolism. Many early biologists and zoologists believed that the rabbit was a hermaphrodite: that is, it was an animal that could reproduce without the loss of its virginity. This is an important symbol of Easter, because we all know how quickly little bunnies can reproduce. Female rabbits can conceive while still pregnant, and since they often have large litters they are symbolic of abundant life: not a far stretch to connect them to Christ’s resurrection, the source of all life.
Because of the date, eggs, and Easter bunnies there have long been misconceptions as to why we do things a certain way at Easter. It’s good to know that even though there seems to be a growing secularism associated with this most sacred holy day, the fact is that the secular is actually religious!
