What is Easter? Exploring the Secular Origins of Spring Traditions

What Does Easter Celebrate?

In the Christian religions, Easter is the celebration of Jesus coming back to life (called the resurrection) three days after being crucified and buried in a tomb. Easter is not celebrated by all Christians. Some Christian groups that separated during the protestant reformation do not celebrate Easter and consider it, among other things, pagan. Other Abrahamic religions, such as Muslim, Bahá’í, and Judaism believe Jesus was a prophet.

For Christians who do celebrate, there is a lead up period called Lent when it is common to give up something, chocolate or alcohol are common today, as well as not eating meat on Fridays. In some parts of the world, a weekly communal meal of fish is served, commonly called Friday Fish Fry. Sometimes, it is hosted by a church as a fundraiser and it is often a featured dinner special at restaurants. In many cases, this meal would remind you of fish and chips.

Image: 1 A fish fry in 1947.

In the past, a vegan diet (no meat or animal products such as eggs or honey) was the norm for some groups during Lent. Lent has subsections of time and days leading up to Easter in the final week such as Palm Sunday (Jesus returns to Jerusalem and people lay down palm leaves for his donkey to walk on.) Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday (the Last Supper), Good Friday (crucifixion day), Holy Saturday (the day between the crucifixion and the resurrection). In different regions of the world, there may be certain rituals or traditions on these days. In my family, we stayed home on Good Friday and could not do anything fun like watch television or play with our friends because our family was observing the anniversary of Jesus being crucified.

If you are not familiar with the resurrection story in Christian religious teachings, here is a basic overview... You may recall that