Easter Facts For Kids | The Christian and Non-Christian Story of Easter

Clarendon Learning celebrates Easter! Happy Easter everybody! Easter, our favorite spring holiday. Well, spring in the Northern Hemisphere anyway. Easter is celebrated around the world in many ways. Easter is celebrated as a Christian holiday and as a non-religious pagan holiday. And pagan just means non-religious, like non-Christian, non-Muslim, or non-Jewish. So, let's talk about the ways Easter is celebrated. This will be good. Let's start with Christian celebrations associated with Easter. Easter Sunday is an important deal to Christians. It celebrates the day when, according to the New Testament of the Holy Bible, or brought back to life from the dead. Easter is considered a movable feast, which means that the date we recognize Easter can move around or change. According to the Gregorian calendar, which is the calendar that most of the world follows, and probably the calendar you follow, Easter will generally be held on the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the first day of spring. I know it sounds kind of confusing, but if you just look at the calendar, it should be marked right there. And from year to year, it can be on any Sunday, somewhere between March 22nd and April 25th. Easter of 2019 will be on Sunday, April 21st. And next year, in the year 2020, Easter will be on Sunday, April 12th. Tricky, right? Check out your calendar. According to the Julian calendar, which some Christian denominations go by in the Eastern Hemisphere, Easter can be celebrated anywhere between April 4th to May 8th. To many, Easter Sunday is the peak to a series of celebrations, recognized way before Easter, beginning with Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is a day to remind people to try and be better, and it's the first day of Lent. Lent is practiced for 40 days. For 40 days, many Christians sacrifice something like, maybe their favorite food, and they also try to break a bad habit. The 40 days of Lent signify the 40 days that Jesus spent praying and fasting in the wilderness, just before his public ministry in Jerusalem and the regions around Jerusalem. Lent is an old English word for lengthen, meaning that in spring, the days begin to get longer. Lent ends at Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday begins the Sunday before Easter and honors the day when according to the New Testament, that Jesus would enter the city of Jerusalem for the last time. As he entered the holy city, disciples of Jesus laid palm fronds on the ground before his path. It was a sign of great respect. During this week, Jesus would spend time with his friends and heal the sick. After having a last supper with his apostles and retiring to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray, Jesus, the man who went about doing good and serving others, would be illegally arrested, falsely accused, and wrongly convicted of crimes he didn't commit. His undeserved punishment was death by crucifixion. He was nailed to a cross, and when he died, he was buried in a nearby tomb. On the third day, when his friends returned to the tomb, they discovered that the tomb was empty, and at that moment Jesus appeared to them, having risen from the dead. He was resurrected. This day is celebrated as Easter Sunday. Jesus Christ is the central figure to Christians all over the world. That is, the Christian observance of Easter in an eggshell. Did I say eggshell? Right, eggs. Colored eggs. Another way that Easter is celebrated is as a non-religious pagan holiday. For many, Easter represents the end of winter. Flowers bloom, and we spend more time outside. It's time for Easter egg hunts, chocolate marshmallow eggs, peeps, and chocolate bunnies. I prefer the solid chocolate over the hollow. What about you? Maybe Easter is a new dress, or shoes, or Easter dinner, and maybe it's coloring hard-boiled eggs. Don't color raw eggs. It could get messy. I don't like to eat hard-boiled eggs, but I love to decorate them. Everyone celebrates Easter time just a little bit differently. You may celebrate Easter as a Christian holy day, or a secular holiday, or maybe both. The traditions we keep and observe help us keep our history alive and bring people together. Please check out the Clarendon Learning pages about Easter. And Happy Easter, everyone! Thanks for following Clarendon Learning. Be sure to subscribe. If you're looking for more teaching resources, check us out at clarendonlearning.org.