Jesus is the bridge and the only way to reach God. Easter restores the bond between God and His people that was shattered due to sin. Therefore, we are called to be an ‘Easter People’ with renewed hope and vigor to love and serve the Lord who humbled himself taking the form of a servant. The apostolic calling is all about being a servant to the other. Therefore the essence of Christian discipleship is service. This is a day that we need to ask ourselves do we serve others or do we expect others to serve us?
The life of saints such as Mother Theresa, St. Francis of Assisi and some of the world leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela are icons that changed the world through selfless service to better the world.
The task therefore on all Christaina is enormous. Let us pledged before the Risen Lord to light up the world around us with truth, peace and justice. Let’s be just in world of injustice, honest where there is insincerity and deception, love where there is hatred and jealousy and kind to the broken hearted. Thereby we could make the world a better place, the home that God created for Him and His children.
The Easter Triduum or Paschal Triduum is the period of three days that begins with the liturgy on the evening of Maundy Thursday, reaches its high point in the Easter vigil and closes with the evening prayer on Easter Sunday. It marks the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus as elaborated in the canonical Gospels.
Going back in time the earliest Christians celebrated the resurrection on the fourteenth of Nisan (our March-April), the date of the Jewish Passover. Jewish days were reckoned from evening to evening, so Jesus had celebrated His Last Supper the evening of the Passover and was crucified the day of the Passover. Early Christians celebrating the Passover worshiped Jesus as the Paschal Lamb and Redeemer.
Some of the Gentile Christians began celebrating Easter in the nearest Sunday to the Passover since Jesus actually arose on a Sunday. This especially became the case in the western part of the Roman Empire. In Rome itself, different congregations celebrated Easter on different days!
Many felt that the date should continue to be based on the timing of the Resurrection during Passover. Once Jewish leaders determined the date of Passover each year, Christian leaders could set the date for Easter by figuring three days after Passover. Following this schedule would have meant that Easter would be a different day of the week each year, only falling on a Sunday once in a while.
Others believed since the Lord rose on a Sunday and this day had been set aside as the Lord’s Day, this was the only possible day to celebrate His resurrection. As Christianity drew away from Judaism, some were reluctant to base the Christian celebration on the Jewish calendar.
Constantine wanted Christianity to be totally separated from Judaism and did not want Easter to be celebrated on the Jewish Passover. The Council of Nicea accordingly required the feast of the resurrection to be celebrated on a Sunday and never on the Jewish Passover. Easter was to be the Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. Since the date of the vernal equinox changed from year to year, calculating the proper date can be difficult. This is still the method used to determine Easter today, which is why some years we have Easter earlier than other years.
