What is Easter? The feast of the resurrection, explained
What happened on the first Easter morning, why the date moves every year, how Christians around the world keep the feast, and the verses to read on the day.
The MySavior teamUpdated · 10 min read
He is not here; He has risen, just as He said! Come, see the place where He lay.
Matthew 28:6 · BSB
Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen!
From Luke 24:5–6 · BSB
Easter is the Christian feast of the resurrection: the day the Church celebrates Jesus rising from the dead on the third day after he was crucified. The next Easter falls on Sunday, March 28, 2027, the earliest Easter since 2016.
Almost everything else in the Christian year leans on it. Lent is forty days of getting ready, Holy Week walks through the days just before it, and Pentecost closes the fifty days after it. Even Sunday, the day most Christians gather to worship, is a weekly echo of the morning the tomb was found empty “on the first day of the week.”
Below is what happened that first morning, why the date moves every year (explained without the arithmetic), how Christians keep the feast, and a handful of resurrection verses from the Berean Standard Bible to read on the day.
What Easter celebrates
The feast of the empty tomb
On Good Friday Jesus was crucified outside Jerusalem and buried before sundown. Very early on the Sunday, a few women came to the tomb with spices and found the stone rolled away. All four Gospels tell it, each from its own angle, and none of them pretends the first witnesses understood what they were seeing. They were frightened, then bewildered, then overjoyed.
For Christians, Easter is not one belief among many. It is the hinge. Paul put it bluntly to the Corinthians: “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.” That is why the feast is older than Christmas, and why the Church keeps it not for one day but for fifty.
The first Easter morning
Matthew 28:5–6
But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; He has risen, just as He said! Come, see the place where He lay.
Matthew 28:5–6 · BSB
Matthew’s account has an earthquake and guards shaking with fear, yet the angel’s first words to the women are gentle: do not be afraid. Then comes an invitation that still stands: come and see. Easter faith began with people looking into an empty space and being told what it meant.
Notice the small phrase “just as He said.” Jesus had told his friends more than once that he would rise. Easter is God keeping his word.
The oldest summary of the faith
1 Corinthians 15:3–4
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
1 Corinthians 15:3–4 · BSB
Paul wrote this letter in the mid-50s AD, but he says he is passing on something he himself received. Many scholars, including some who doubt the resurrection, date this short creed to within a few years of the crucifixion, which makes it one of the oldest records of Christian belief that Jesus rose.
The list runs on: Cephas, the Twelve, more than five hundred people at once, James, and last of all Paul himself. Easter was never presented as a private feeling. It was news, with names attached.
The computus, simply
Why the date of Easter moves every year
Christmas has a fixed date; Easter follows the moon. The reason is Passover. Jesus died and rose during the Passover festival in Jerusalem, and Passover is set by the Jewish calendar, which runs on the moon. The first Christians kept Easter in step with it, and different churches worked out the date in different ways. In 325 the Council of Nicaea agreed that all Christians should celebrate on the same Sunday, and over the following centuries the method worked out by the church of Alexandria became the standard.
The rule, as Western churches keep it, fits in one sentence: Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21. March 21 stands in for the spring equinox every year, and the full moon comes from church tables built on a 19-year cycle rather than from the sky, so it can be a day off from the one you see. Put together, Easter can land anywhere from March 22 to April 25. Working out the date has a name of its own: the computus.
The dates for next year
Easter 2027: Sunday, March 28, 2027
In 2027 the church’s spring full moon falls on Monday, March 22, just after March 21, so Easter comes early: March 28. Count back and Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, February 10; Palm Sunday is March 21 and Good Friday March 26. Count forward and Pentecost, the fiftieth day, falls on May 16.
Orthodox churches still work out Easter with the older calendar of Julius Caesar’s day and older moon tables, so they keep Pascha on May 2, five weeks later. The two dates meet again in 2028, when everyone celebrates on April 16. Our Easter date page keeps a running count and the dates for the next ten years.
Where the name comes from
Why Easter is called Pascha
In most of the Christian world the feast is named after Passover. Greek and Latin call it Pascha, from the Hebrew pesach, and you can still hear it in French Pâques, Spanish Pascua and Italian Pasqua. Paul made the link before the name existed: “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” That is why Christian art so often shows the risen Jesus as a lamb carrying a banner of victory, like the window in this picture.
English is the odd one out, along with German Ostern. In the eighth century the English monk Bede wrote that the old name for the month around April came from a goddess called Eostre, and scholars have argued about his explanation ever since. Whatever the word’s roots, the feast’s meaning is Passover.
The place
Where Christians remember the tomb
In Jerusalem’s Old City, one church holds both the rock of Golgotha and the tomb Christians have honored as Jesus’ own since ancient times. The emperor Constantine had the first church built over the site, and it was consecrated on September 13, 335. It has been damaged and rebuilt more than once since; the small shrine over the tomb, the Aedicule, was rebuilt in 1809–10 after a fire.
The church is shared, under an old agreement called the Status Quo, by the Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches, with smaller rights held by the Syriac, Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox. Pilgrims stoop through a low doorway to reach the tomb. It is still empty.
The question at the tomb
From Luke 24:5–6
Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen!
From Luke 24:5–6 · BSB
Luke’s women arrive with spices for a body and meet two men in radiant apparel instead. They were looking in the right place for the wrong thing.
The question is worth asking ourselves at Easter: where do we still treat Jesus as a memory, someone to visit and mourn, rather than someone alive who can be met?
How Christians keep Easter
New fire, red eggs and sunrise in the graveyard
Many churches begin Easter in the dark. At the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night, a new fire is kindled outside the church, the tall Paschal candle is lit from it, and the deacon carries it into the dark nave, stopping three times to sing “Light of Christ.” The ancient hymn called the Exsultet follows, and new Christians are often baptized that same night. Orthodox churches gather toward midnight, when the priest lights a candle in the darkened church. In many churches the old greeting rings out that night: “Christ is risen!” and its answer, “He is risen indeed!”
Eggs belong to Easter partly because they were long given up during Lent, so the first ones on Easter morning marked the end of the fast. In Orthodox homes they are dyed red for the blood of Christ, and Greek families crack them against each other as they exchange the Easter greeting. White lilies fill many Western churches through the season.
In 1732, in the Moravian village of Herrnhut in Saxony, the unmarried men of the community prayed through the night before Easter, then climbed to the graveyard on the hill to sing hymns to the risen Lord. The next year the whole congregation went with them. Sunrise services have spread far beyond the Moravians since, kept at the hour Mark gives for the women’s visit: “just after sunrise.”
On your iPhone
Count the days to Easter
Lent is easier to keep when Easter is in sight. MySavior’s Christian Countdown widget counts down to Easter on your Lock Screen or Home Screen, and the number goes down by one each night at midnight. It runs the same Easter calculation described above on your iPhone, so it finds the Western date for any year by itself.
Easter is one of 30 feasts it knows, so you can count down to Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday or Pentecost as well. To set it up, add the widget, touch and hold it, tap Edit Widget and set Event to Easter.
Sunday, November 8
9:41
Count down to Easter on your Lock ScreenMySavior’s Christian Countdown widget shows the days until Easter on your Home Screen and Lock Screen, and works out the date for every year by itself.
★ Rated 4.9 on the US App StoreLoved by Christians in 60+ countries8,000+ people every month
For anyone grieving this Easter
From John 11:25–26
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.
From John 11:25–26 · BSB
Jesus said this to Martha outside her brother’s tomb, days before his own death. She had just told him, in effect, that he had come too late. He did not hand her an explanation. He gave her himself.
If Easter comes this year with an empty chair at your table, this is the verse to sit with. The resurrection does not cancel grief. It promises that grief will not have the last word.
Easter’s defiant question
1 Corinthians 15:55
“Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?”
1 Corinthians 15:55 · BSB
Paul borrows the words of the prophet Hosea and turns them into a taunt. Death is still real, and it still hurts. But since that Sunday morning it no longer has the final say over those who belong to Christ, and Christians have been saying so out loud ever since.
To pray on the day
A prayer for Easter morning
Risen Lord Jesus, you went down into the dark for us and came out on the third day. Roll away whatever stone we have set in front of our hearts. When we look for you among the dead, call us by name, as you called Mary in the garden. Give us Easter faith for ordinary days, and keep us glad until we see you face to face. Amen.
Say it early if you can, before the meal and the visitors. Mary Magdalene went to the tomb “while it was still dark.” A few quiet minutes at the start of the day is a small way of going with her.
A small practice for Easter week
Read one resurrection account a day from Easter Sunday to Wednesday: Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24 and John 20. They are short, and they do not tell the story the same way. Notice who is afraid, who runs, who weeps and who is called by name. On the Sunday after Easter, read 1 Corinthians 15 straight through. Then say the old greeting to someone, out loud: “Christ is risen!” Easter lasts fifty days; there is time.
Keep Easter in view all year
A countdown to Easter and 29 other feasts, Bible verse widgets for your Home Screen, and a saint for every day.
★ Rated 4.9 on the US App StoreLoved by Christians in 60+ countries8,000+ people every month
Questions
What is Easter?
Easter is the Christian feast of the resurrection of Jesus, celebrated on the Sunday after Good Friday, the day of his crucifixion. It is the oldest and most important feast of the Christian year, and it opens a fifty-day season that ends at Pentecost.
When is Easter 2027?
Easter 2027 is on Sunday, March 28, 2027, the date kept by the Catholic Church and most Protestant churches. Orthodox Easter 2027 is on Sunday, May 2, 2027. In 2028 both fall on the same day, Sunday, April 16, 2028.
Why does the date of Easter change every year?
Because it follows the moon as well as the sun. Western churches keep Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21, using a full moon worked out from church tables, which puts it between March 22 and April 25. The link to the moon comes from Passover, the festival during which Jesus died and rose.
How long does the Easter season last?
Fifty days. The Easter season runs from Easter Sunday to Pentecost, the fiftieth day counting Easter itself. In 2027, Ascension Day falls on Thursday, May 6, 2027 and Pentecost on Sunday, May 16, 2027.
Which Bible translation is quoted here?
Every verse in this article is quoted from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB).
