The Christian holy day called Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ three days after his death. Christians believe that Christ was divine, the Son of God, and human at the same time. Therefore he could die like a man, but could also beat death so that his body could come to life again. After his resurrection Christ stayed on earth for 40 days and preached to all his disciples. Then on the fortieth day he ascended bodily into heaven. The resurrection of Christ was considered the proof that he was God and it was the beginning of the Christian religion. The importance of this event makes Easter the most holy day of the year for Christians. This is shown on the calendar of holy days where Lent leads up to Easter and the celebration of Easter lasts until Ascension day. Many of the prayers and rituals of Easter are different for different Catholic and Protestant branches of Christianity. But the observance of Easter is the central event of the year for all of them.
Easter was celebrated quite recently and to anybody who is unfamiliar with the holy day it seems unusual. The Easter egg, for example, does not seem to be connected to the Resurrection story at first. Even many Christians can not explain Easter eggs if they are asked. Therefore I decided to research the meaning of Easter.
In order to get a clear outline of the ideas behind Easter a basic history of world religions was consulted. Parrinder gives the basic information about Easter, including the sources of the story in the Bible and its importance as the founding event in Christianity. At the University Research Library at UCLA the on-line catalog allows word-based title searches. A search for titles with the word "Easter" produced hundreds of items, but when the word was combined with "meaning," the book by Alan Watts came up.
The small section where the Watts book is located is devoted to books about individual Christian holy day...