Easter

The reason is not biblical it is to do with using the lunar calendar as opposed to the solar calendar.

Easter is a Christian holy period celebrating the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ . Easter Day is the holiest day and celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ and is always on a Sunday. The Christian church believed that the promises made to the Jews had now been done away with and been given to christians instead.

This meant they did not want any reminder of Judaism at all. This was difficult to do since Christ was crucified on the Jewish Passover and resurrected 4 days later, but they managed to do it by creating a complicated formula to give variable dates for Easter Day with no connection to Passover. The one thing they could not countenance was the memorial of Jesus' death occurring exactly on the Jewish Passover.

The reason the date for Easter varies is because the Jewish calendar is lunar (that is, based on the moon) while the western christian calendar is solar (that is , based on the sun) so the two calendar systems do not coincide .

The only time 'Easter' is mentioned in the Bible is in Acts 12:4, and that is in only the King James version version: all the others use 'Passover' or 'the festival'.

Act 12:4 And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.

Christ was crucified on the Jewish Passover ("Pesach" ) which is always on the 14th day of the Jewish month of 'Nisan' , which happened to be a Wednesday of that particular year. (Christ was not crucified on a Friday as there were twosabbaths that week, not one as the anti-semitic church thought: one was a 'High' sabbath for the 'Feast Of Unleavened Bread ' period and the other was the usual weekly [Saturday] sabbath.)

As Christ was crucified at Passover which happened to be on a Wednesday and resurrected four days later on Sunday, the actual date for Easter Day should always be 4 days after the Jewish Passover.

Irish Easter begins, as do most Irish seasonal celebrations, with cleansing. Houses are to be cleaned inside and out, and whitewashed if necessary. As is the custom in the United States and many other places around the world, it is a time to purchase new clothing.

Good Friday is a day of remembrance, for it is the day when the innocent Lord Jesus was crucified. There should be no work done in the fields, but only work on the house, preferably inside. No blood is to be shed, no hammering of nails, and no wood working, for to do so would be to equal oneself with the Roman soldiers who nailed the hands and feet of the Savior onto the wood of the cross. Fasting more than usual is a must. There must be absolute silence from noon until around three in the afternoon, for that was the time of the Lord's greatest agony on the cross. After a visit to church, Good Friday is a day for visiting graveyards and holy wells. There is to be no fishing done on this day, at least not with nets, boats or fishing lines. The evening meal is to be made of sea food, but that which can be gathered on the shore...shell fish, sea weed and such. To prevent headaches throughout the coming year, one must cut his or her hair, and also trim fingernails and toe nails. Despite the memory of the death of God's Son, it is a blessed day for life, for in His death, the Son brought life to any who would seek it. A baby born on Good Friday and baptized on Easter Sunday is believed to have special healing powers. If a son, he should go into the ministry. Even eggs hatched on this day will be sure to produce healthy chicks. Unhatched eggs gathered should be marked with a cross, and eaten by the family on Easter Sunday.

Easter Saturday is a little less heavy. Some water should be taken to be blessed, and three sips taken of the now "Holy water" by each member of the family. With what is left, everything in the house should be sprinkled for blessings in the year to come.

Easter Sunday is the big day, the day everyone has been waiting for. On this day, Jesus rose from the dead, and all is joy. Everyone must rise early, before the sunrise, as did the ladies who went to the tomb to tend to the slain Savior's body. But just as the sun rises in the sky, so did the Lord rise from the dead, and the ladies did not find his body there as they had expected. Even the sun seems to dance with joy for the return to life of his Creator. Children and adults alike will take a pail of water and watch the reflection of the sun, then jiggle it so the water moves, making the sun appear to dance.

After the sunrise (or Sonrise as many Christians refer to it) ceremony, it is time for worship in church, and then the festivities.

Butchers, who for the long days of lent have gone through some slow business, will often hold a mock funeral for a herring. This is symbolic of the end of lent, the end of abstinence, and the return to eating meat. A day of great joy for butchers. They have a procession where they might whip the herring, but whatever they do, it involves this poor doomed fish.

The egg, being a symbol of life and new birth, spring and the raising from the dead of the Lord Jesus, plays an important part in the celebrations on this day. Children can boil and paint them. They can be given away, eaten, rolled in a race to see which one can go the farthest, and of course, the well know egg hunt where they are hidden and the children set out to find them.

Another Irish custom is to have the children gather raw eggs, then cook or roast them in a special contraption built at the edge of their farm. This ritual is called a cluideog (cludog). All egg shells must be saved to place around the May bush.

Easter Sunday, as mentioned above, is the day when lent comes to an end. The Savior has risen, and there is no longer need for mourning and sacrifice. It is a time to celebrate. It is time to feast. Beef is the meat of choice. And then there is the cake dance. The best dancer wins the cake.

As the day winds down, everyone heads for a "Sunday" well and a big bonfire is lit. With any such gathering in Ireland, you can be sure there will be plenty of fun and story telling. Then it's time to go home and go to bed. After all, tomorrow is Monday and life goes back to normal.

• The Encyclopædia Britannica comments: "There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament, or in the writings of the apostolic Fathers. The sanctity of special times was an idea absent from the minds of the first Christians."---(1910), Vol. VIII, p. 828.
• The Catholic Encyclopedia tells us: "A great many pagan customs, celebrating the return of spring, gravitated to Easter. The egg is the emblem of the germinating life of early spring. . . . The rabbit is a pagan symbol and has always been an emblem of fertility."---(1913), Vol. V, p. 227.
• Nowhere does the Bible indicate that early Christians observed either a weekly Sunday or a yearly Easter to commemorate Christ's resurrection.
• The night before he died, Christ ordered quite a different celebration. He served his disciples a simple meal of wine and bread and commanded them, "Keep doing this in remembrance of me."---Luke 22:19.
• It was thus Christ's death, not his resurrection, that Jesus wanted memorialized. Jesus served this meal on the night of the Jewish Passover meal---a yearly celebration of Israel's deliverance from Egypt. (Matthew 26:19, 20, 26-28) Obviously, Jesus intended to replace the Passover with a yearly serving of this memorial meal. Neither Easter nor any other celebration was commanded by Christ.
• From John's Gospel we learn that Jesus' body had to be quickly removed from the torture stake because the Passover was about to begin. The other Gospel accounts say that the Sabbath was about to begin (at sundown on Nisan the 14th). The prophecy was that the Messiah would die and then be raised on the third day. Christ died before the evening on which Passover/Sabbath was to begin and lay in the tomb for 2 nights, rising on the third.
• Later, the leaders of Christendom's churches established the (un-scriptural) tradition of "Easter". (Of course, most of these traditions like bunnies, eggs, and candy, have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus.)

Christendom's teachings:

• On "Good Friday", Jesus died on the cross. They (who?) said that in three days he would rise from the dead. On Sunday, a woman disciple of Jesus looked inside the burial tomb but Jesus' body was gone. Jehovah God resurrected him. Jesus' death freed us all from sin and death and so, every April 4 is a Sunday, Easter Sunday. (What???????)
• Fact - This year - 2011 - April 4th is a Monday .... Easter Sunday 2011 does not occur until April 24.) And this year, 2013, it is celebrated on March 31st.
• Easter has everything to do with Jesus. It is the celebration of His resurrection and victory over the grave. Jesus was born as the literal Son of God for a very specific and special purpose: to be a sacrifice for all mankind.
• Due to the Fall of Adam and Eve, all God's spirit children born into mortality are fallen beings, separated from God by physical death because we sin and are imperfect. Through the sacrifice and Atonement of Jesus Christ, however, we have the opportunity to be cleansed from our sin and to also have the hope of being raised from the dead.
• Before being crucified, Jesus Christ took upon himself the sins and infirmities of the world and of all humanity. He suffered every pain, sickness, loss, and trial that any human will ever go through on this earth. He did this so he could learn for himself how to succor his people. After taking upon himself the sins of the world, he was crucified and died for us all. As the literal Son of God, He was the only being capable of both taking upon himself all our sins and infirmities and willingly giving his life.
• We believe Jesus was half God (immortal) and half man (mortal); thus, he had the power to keep his life, but also the ability to die. (Huh???) He chose to die, but he didn't really die because he is God, but by dying and by so doing, gained power over the grave, because he also had the power to take his body up again. (What????) After three days in the tomb, Jesus' father in heaven took up his body again, to never again part with it. But 1 Corinthians 15:44,50 says that there are no physical bodies in heaven because "flesh & blood cannot inherit God's heavenly kingdom". He is now a resurrected being, with his "body" and spirit making up an eternal soul. (Huh?) He gained the keys of death and of the grave, and gives us all the gift of being resurrected one day.
• Thus, through the power of His Atonement, we have the opportunity to overcome both physical and spiritual death: physical death through resurrection and spiritual death through repentance and forgiveness. When we celebrate Easter, we celebrate both of these gifts. We celebrate that on the third day after His crucifixion, Christ's tomb was empty, because His body had been resurrected by his father. We also celebrate the gift he has given us and choose to repent from our sins and be cleansed and purified through his atoning sacrifice.Easter is a wonderful time to remember and be grateful that our Heavenly Father gave us the ultimate gift: the sacrifice of His SON, Jesus Christ, so that we may each return to live with Him again.