The Significance of Easter
The management team of Face Activities wishes our members and visitors, and their families, a very Happy Easter!
Easter is the most important holiday in Christianity. It’s celebrated by 2.2 billion Christians world-wide. Traditional Christians worship the divinity of Jesus, and Easter Sunday is the day, according to the Bible, when Jesus rose from the dead, revealing himself to be a divine figure. Easter, at its essence, actually defines Christianity.
Easter is the culmination of “holy week,” including many religious events. Most well known are Palm Sunday (a celebratory day) commemorating when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey (a symbol representing a peaceful King) and Good Friday (a day of fasting and penance), commemorating his crucifixion and death at the hands of the Romans. The joyful holiday of Easter, commemorating his Resurrection, caps the holy week with an exuberant feast.
As with Christmas and other Christian holidays, many pagan elements have worked their way into modern Easter celebrations. This blending of traditions was encouraged by the early church, which sought to incorporate diverse religious and cultural groups into the religion by adopting and repurposing the ancient religious holidays and culturally specific imagery of these groups. For this reason rabbits and eggs, which were common pagan fertility symbols throughout Europe, have their place in the modern holiday.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
