Easter: Connections between the Christian and Cultural Aspects
By Marc Servos
Similar to Christmas, Easter is celebrated as a Christian holiday as well as a cultural one. It is characterized with church services celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny delivering them. The latter two may seem unconnected, but are actually derived from the holiday’s Christian roots (see below). Another notable observation is Good Friday, observing Jesus’ crucifixion two days prior to Easter Sunday, but associated celebrations extend several weeks prior, and even afterwards with what is commonly known as Eastertide.
anticipation of the penitential period of Lent. Seen as a cultural holiday period, Mardi Gras is marked by festivals and culminates on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, commencing Lent. This Tuesday is also known as Shrove Tuesday, and in the United Kingdom, it’s called Pancake Tuesday.
My own experiences of being affiliated with or otherwise exposed to different denominations have shown various ways of observing Lent and its conclusion during Holy Week. Lent commemorates the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert fasting. It is common in some denominations for followers to These celebrations are not on annual fixed days, choose to give up something during that period but rather are movable feasts on the Christian as a practice of penance. Eastern Christians liturgical calendar based on the lunisolar calendar begin Lent with Clean Monday, following the - a solar year plus a moon phase - similar to the same principle. Hebrew calendar. Based on all of that, Easter falls Holy Week on the first Sunday after the first full moon in Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, celebrating spring. In 2022, the holiday falls on April 17 in the Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Palm Western Gregorian Calendar and April 24 in the leaves, with which people greeted Him, are Eastern Julian Calendar. often given to church congregants on this day, What is Lent? one week before Easter Sunday. Holy Week is Mardi Gras, French for Fat Tuesday, is connected, also concurrent with the Jewish observance of perhaps indirectly, to the Easter season in Passover, celebrating the exodus of Israelites
26 LIVING IN SINGAPORE
