From MyFundi Rubens’ “Christ on the cross between the two thieves”. In Christian symbolism, the Easter lamb is the symbol for Christ. The special message of Easter is that the crucified Lord was resurrected. God accepted Christ as sacrifice for the world.
Easter (also Passover) has a very important place in the Christian church: It is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his crucifixion. The Christian Easter, the oldest Christian festival, has its origin in the Jewish liturgy that surrounds the liberation from Egypt. The commemoration of the great deeds of God time and again reinforced and strengthened faith and hope in the future. In the Christian Easter the same history of God and His people is commemorated, but in this first place around the person of the Messiah, who became the new Passover lamb (according to Paul, I Corinthians 5:7).
The resurrection of Christ was originally celebrated every Sunday in the Christian Church, and it is uncertain when and how the annual Easter festival originated. The Christians of the Middle East followed the old Hebrew reckoning and celebrated Easter on the 14th (Latin: quarto decima) Nissan. In the West the festival was celebrated on the Sunday after the 14th Nissan or, according to the lunar calculation, the first Sunday after the full moon of the (European) spring.
There have been much disputes and discussions on what the exact custom was, not only for the date, but also because as far as fasting and the meaning of Easter were concerned. The question was whether the death or the resurrection of Christ should receive the greater emphasis.
At the end of the second century, the Bishop of Rome attempted to put an end the so-called Easter dispute. The Western custom dominated and at the Council of Nicaea (325) the date of the Easter Festival was officially decreed, as it still applies today. Because of differences in the calculation of Easter, the Jewish Passover often falls on a different date from that of Christianity.
The special message of Easter is that the crucified Lord was resurrected. God accepted Christ as sacrifice for the world. Christ had risen and rules over sin and death. In the Protestant theology the full understanding of the meaning of the resurrection of Christ is still being disputed. Easter is again the centre of modern theology.
According to Exodus 12, the Passover lamb is the lamb killed by the Jews during the Egyptian exile and of which the blood had to be smeared on the two side posts and the upper doorpost of the house so that God would spare the firstborn of the house (and he would not die like firstborn of the Egyptians). In Christian symbolism, the Easter lamb is the symbol for Christ.