The date of Easter in 2018 is April 8, of course, Sunday. This holiday for believing Christians is primarily associated with the resurrection of Christ from the dead. The roots of Easter come from a specific historical day and even the exact time - midnight on the 14th of the Jewish month of Nisan. Then came the death of all the first-born in Egypt, the tenth Egyptian execution. And at the same time, the holiday of liberation for God's people is Easter.
The Last Supper, as the last supper of Jesus with the disciples (the apostles and Judas) is called, just the Seder - the festive reception of special food and the beginning of the celebration of Easter for 7 days. The time when Jews, centuries after the exodus from Egypt, are still gathered at the table with the whole family. A special place is given to the presence of children and the obligatory reminder of the history of the liberation of the chosen people from slavery, as in the 12th chapter of the book, God ordered the Exodus to do. Therefore,
when Easter will be in 2018 , He wants people to remember the Easter story again.What the Bible says: Old Testament
What happened that night? The Bible, namely the Old Testament and its book Exodus, contains the very beginning of the Easter story. For centuries, then she had a large-scale development branching into faiths and traditions. She overgrown with legends of miracles and saints. Other events in the formation of the Church influenced. But, as the Lord Jesus Himself said in the Bible, initially God arranged everything like that!
The tenth execution of the Egyptian
It all started with the slavery of the Jews in Egypt. Moses, the greatest prophet, came to set them free. God had already executed nine executions on the Egyptians, but the cruel heart of Pharaoh did not soften. Therefore, the Lord sent an angel of death, who went around the country at night, killing the first-born in every house - this was the tenth execution. Looking at the dead children, the pharaoh and his subjects ceased to persist, not only released, but hastened God's people to leave.
The Jews, in order to avoid the fate of the Egyptians and save the lives of their children, had to take one lamb, sacrifice it in a special way, and anoint the door jambs with blood. As a sign for the angel of death, you need to go past this house. The Hebrew name for Passover, or Easter in Russian, means “pass”.
Immaculate lamb
The lamb (or kid) should have been without vice, an annual male. It was necessary to take it 10 Nisan and kill with the onset of dusk 14 Nisan. To anoint with blood both the doorpost and the lintel at the front door of the house, dipping a twig of hyssop into it, and fry the meat on a fire and eat it with bitter herbs and unleavened bread that very night. There was a need especially - fully assembled in a hurry. What remains uneaten is to burn before morning. This is what night is and what kind of lamb the Lord called Easter. And ordered each year to celebrate this day and this night exactly. And to prepare for the holiday and consider the beginning of the year - 1 day of the month of Nisan, two weeks before the Easter dinner.
The bitter herbs should have reminded of the bitterness of captivity and slavery.
Unleavened bread is a biblical symbol of purification, mentioned in many passages of Scripture. Only such bread was ordered to eat seven days, from the 14th to the 21st day of the month of Nisan.
How many spiritual parallels arose in that first Easter in Egypt! The fundamental prophecy is about Christ, that He will be the immaculate Easter Lamb, a sacrifice for the sins of all people. The liberation of Jews from Egyptian slavery anticipated freedom from the sin of all mankind by the blood of Christ. And the death that passed by the elect of God that night, on Judgment Day, will depart from the Christians. And they will be resurrected by Christ for eternal life.
Jewish holiday Passover
How many Jews have Easter in 2018 ? Like thousands of years - the 14th of the month of Nisan. But their calendar is lunar. And most countries now live according to the Gregorian calendar, based on the period of the Earth's revolution around the Sun. Therefore, Jewish Passover will be in 2018, when it will be seven days after the first spring full moon according to the Jewish calendar - on the night of March 31, and will last until April 7.
About two thousand years ago, like other Jews, Jesus and His disciples came to Jerusalem for the Passover holiday. The Lamb of God was preparing to put himself in the hands of the high priests for an atoning sacrifice, to suffer, to be crucified, and to rise from the dead on the third day.
What the Bible Says: Evangelists
The Evangelist Luke was not an eyewitness to the resurrection, but questioned those who had witnessed, thoroughly investigated, and recorded the sequence of events of those days. The apostle John personally looked into the empty tomb. The apostle Peter, who was with John and went into the empty burial place of Christ, not only told the evangelist Mark, but also wrote several letters to the early churches about the miracle of the resurrection. That is what they are all talking about.
John the Baptist
At the beginning of our era, the countdown of which, incidentally, comes from the Nativity of Christ, in Jerusalem they were still waiting for the Mission. The power of Rome in the province of Judea as part of the Eternal Empire caused tension for a long time, but the confrontation of slaves and invaders reached its climax. Therefore, zealous Jews passionately awaited the arrival of the Savior, who would overthrow the power of the damned pagan Romans and establish a kingdom pleasing to God.
They were waiting for the new Tsar, and a
strange man appeared in camel clothes - John the Baptist. He ate locusts and honey, lived outside the city in the desert, and baptized people in repentance right in the Jordan River.
But the most important and incomprehensible thing is that he proclaimed the speedy coming of the Tsar, which everyone had been waiting for. And he called himself a herald in the desert. And one day he pointed to a man and said: “Here he is, the Lamb of God, who will bear the sins of the world!”
Jesus
Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, passed the forty-day test in the wilderness and temptations from the devil, and then began to preach repentance, the coming judgment and coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. He healed and invoked, fed and preached to many thousands of people, performed great miracles, but he did not build a political kingdom and did not start a revolution against the invading Romans.
The tension in society was growing. The religious leaders of that time were seriously afraid of the uprising and, as a result, its brutal suppression by the Roman troops. Therefore, they decided to execute Christ.
He was betrayed and given to the authorities by Judas for thirty pieces of silver, other students fled from Gethsemane from the place of arrest, the godless Sanhedrin court called false witnesses and sentenced him to death. The prosecutor of Judea Pontius Pilate washed his hands in the literal and figurative sense, sending Jesus to Mount Calvary for a terrible execution after torture with a scourge and crown of thorns. This is how Easter Day came on that crucial year in the history of the whole world.
Therefore, it is important, when thinking about when Easter will be in 2018, to remember from which year and event the countdown is made.
Empty tomb
Natural question: where does the tomb of the executed one come from as the last slave on the cross of Christ? Joseph from Arimathea, which was not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible, for example, as a disciple of Christ, asked His body from Pilate and buried it near Calvary.
On the third day after the execution, according to the Gospel of John, Mary Magdalene came to the grave with oils for burial. But she did not find the body, but only a stone and an empty tomb, rolled away from the entrance. She hastened to the apostles Peter and John to tell about this. The men ran to the coffin. Arriving first, John only to look inside. Peter came in and found folded funeral sheets and a headscarf, folded separately. They believed Mary that the body of the Lord was stolen, and the sad ones left. Maria remained sobbing at the tomb.
Mary and the Angels
And the angels sitting at the head of the bed and at the feet of the burial place, and the risen Christ, who came up from behind, asked her why she was crying and whom she was looking for. At this moment, the star of hope rose for all faithful Christians, for at that moment the Lord appeared for the first time to be resurrected from the dead.
As He predicted, the world rejoiced on the day of His death, and the disciples wept. But on the third day the time of trouble passed, and no one will ever take away the joys of Christians!
How to calculate the date of Easter every year
It will be useful to find out how the date of Easter is calculated annually, wondering when Easter is in 2018. Orthodox , Catholics and Jews customarily calculate it in different ways. First of all, because the holiday is dedicated to various historical events for them, if we talk about Christians and Jews. And the faiths of Catholics and Orthodox live on the Julian and Gregorian calendars, respectively.
When Easter in 2018 in Russia, it is difficult to calculate on your own. The first and simple condition is Easter in the spring. And the second like him - on Sunday.
Since the time of the First Ecumenical Council, it was decided not to celebrate the holiday with the Jews, which is important to take into account when calculating the number of Easter in 2018. Orthodox clergymen consider it important to celebrate Easter after the Old Testament Easter. Therefore, from the day of the vernal equinox one full moon should pass. This is necessary to observe the chronology of the Old Testament.
So to determine the number of Easter in 2018, the easiest way is to use special tables. They are composed by priests, using a special calculation technique and taking into account the necessary conditions. With their help, it is easy for any person to know in advance when Easter will be in 2018 and to prepare a soul and a heart.
And let everyone be ready to meet Easter full not of vice and craftiness, but of the purity and truth of the Christian life!