Good Friday. Good Friday is the Friday before Easter Sunday

Good Friday is the Friday before Easter Sunday. On this day Christians remember the day when Jesus was crucified. The name may be derived from “God’s Friday” in the same way that good-bye is derived from “God be with ye”. It is “good” because the barrier of sin was broken.

The date of Good Friday changes every year. The date of the first Good Friday will never be known, but many scholars believe that the event took place on April 7^th, A.D. 30. If they are right the calendar is wrong, by three years.

Since the early nineteenth century, before the introduction of bank holidays, Good Friday and Christmas Day were the only two days of leisure which were almost universally granted to working people. Good Friday today is still a public holiday in much of the UK. This means that many businesses are closed.

Major customs :

Traditional food.

It is traditional to eat “ hot cross buns ” on Good Friday. Hot Cross Buns with their combination of spicy, sweet and fruity flavours have long been an Easter tradition.

The pastry cross on top of the buns symbolizes and reminds Christians of the cross that Jesus was killed on. The buns were traditionally eaten at breakfast time, hot from the oven. They were once sold by street vendors who sang a little song about them.

“Hot cross buns, Hot cross buns,

One a penny, two a penny,

Hot cross buns”.

Hot Cross Bun Ceremony. At the London Pub, The Widow’s Son, a Hot Cross Bun Ceremony takes place each Good Friday. In the early 19^th century, a widow who lived on the site was expecting her sailor son back home for Easter, and placed a hot cross bun ready for him on Good Friday. The son never returned, but, undaunted, the widow left the bun waiting for him and added a new bun each year. Successive landlords have kept the tradition going after the pub was opened.

Washing and cleaning. Traditionally Good Friday was the day when everything was cleaned and whitewashed in preparation for Easter Sunday.

Easter

Easter is the oldest and the most important Christian Festival, the celebration of the death and coming to life again of Jesus Christ. For Christians, the dawn of Easter Sunday with its message of new life is the high point of the Christian year.

Easter is called a moveable feast because the date of Easter changes every year. Easter Sunday can fall on any date from 22 March to 25 April. The reason for this variation in the date of Easter is based on the lunar calendar (moon) rather than our more well-known solar one. Easter always falls on the first Sunday following the full Moon (the Paschal Full Moon) after 21 March. If the Full Moon falls on a Sunday then Easter is the next Sunday.

Easter tells the story of the resurrection myth, a tale not unlike that told by the ancient Egyptians of the life of Osiris or by the Greeks of Apollo or by the Aztecs of Quetzalcoatl. In the West, vivid seasonal imagery is made meaningful by paralleling significant episodes in the life of Christ, from birth to resurrection, with those in the year, from Christmas to Easter, when the cycle of life, broken by death, becomes reconnected. The springtime resurrection of Christ and the bringing of light into the world resonates with the American and Asian idea of gods or animals needing to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to ensure the sun will rise. The English word for Easter derives from this very concept. In the Teutonic tradition, Eostre or Eastre was the sun goddess of dawn and consequently the East. When Baldus the sun god is slain by an arrow and condemned to spend half the year in the underworld it is she who tends the gates of Valhalla. She opens them in the spring when he reenters the world.

Major customs:

Giving eggs. For Christians the custom of giving eggs at Easter celebrates new life. The Easter egg became very popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as yet another old religious holiday was converted to a family-centered festival focusing largely on children, thanks to the efforts of romantic middle-class home-centered Victorians who had a fascination with old traditions. In American folklore, the egg is not the product of a bird but rather of the hare, a tradition brought over by the Pennsylvania Dutch. It seems that the hare was once a bird—until Eostre, goddess of dawn, changed it into the fourfooted creature noted for its prolific fertility. Another mythological tradition that connects the hare or rabbit with Easter tells the story of a rabbit who sacrificed himself for the sake of gods and then was resurrected and placed on the face of the moon. However, none of this is known to the millions of people who buy chocolate bunnies as symbols of Easter and cards with Easter bunnies on them.

Pace egging. Pace Eggs are hard boiled eggs with patterned shells, they are traditional in northern parts of England at Easter, with local variants in the name, such as Paste Eggs. The name is derived from Pesach (Passover). The background colour is provided by onion skins with designs created by leaves and flowers placed next to the shell. All kinds of fun are had with the hard-boiled decorated pace eggs.

Egg rolling. Egg rolling is very popular in England and is an Easter Monday sport. Hard-boiled eggs are rolled down a hill. Customs differ from place to place. The winner’s egg may be the one that rolls the farthest, survives the most rolls, or is rolled between two pegs.

Egg-jarping (egg tapping). Another activity that takes place on Easter Day is the playing of a game with the eggs known as “jarping”, with players tapping their opponents’ eggs until one breaks. The winner goes through to the next round, and so on until there is only one egg left unbroken. A good hit by a jarper is called a “dunch”. The game is popular in County Durham, where it is played on Easter Sunday.

Sunrise service. This service takes place on a hill side so everyone can see the sun rise.

Easter Vigil. Some Christians take part in an Easter Vigil, lighting a new fire outside the church early on Sunday morning. The Paschal candle, decorated with studs to celebrate Christ’s wounds, may be lit from the fire and carried into the church where it is used to light the candles of the worshippers. The Easter Eucharist is a particularly joyful service. It is a popular time for baptisms and renewal of baptism vows.

Easter Garden. Some churches have an Easter Garden. A stone is placed across the mouth of a tomb before Easter, then rolled away on Easter morning.

Easter cards. Easter cards arrived in Victorian England, when a stationer added a greeting to a drawing of a rabbit. The cards proved popular.

Special food at Easter. After the lean months of winter and the fast weeks of Lent, food at Easter was always a special treat. Easter day, like Christmas day, is also associated with special food.

Boiled eggs are traditionally served at breakfast, then Easter cards and gifts may be exchanged.

Roast lamb, which is the main dish at Jewish Passover, is the traditional meat for the main meal on Easter Day. It is served with mint sauce and vegetables. The traditional puddings are custard tarts sprinkled with currants and flat Easter biscuits.

Simnel cake is baked for tea. The Simnel cake is a rich fruitcake covered with a thick layer of almond paste (marzipan). A layer of marzipan is also traditionally baked into the middle of the cake. Eleven balls of marzipan are placed around the top to represent the eleven true disciples (excluding Judas). Originally the simnel cake was a gift to mothers on Mothering Sunday in Mid Lent.