Easter Sunday is also known as resurrection day and is a holiday and Christian celebration to mark the return to life of Jesus Christ who had been crucified three days earlier on Good Friday, having been sentenced to death by the Roman authorities on trumped up charges of Blasphemy.
It is considered the holiest and most important day in the Christian calendar and is a joyous celebration as it symbolizes the triumph of love and life over death and evil and the optimism of rebirth and spiritual life. It stands in marked contrast to Good Friday which is sombre and mournful as it remembers suffering and death.
Easter Sunday is celebrated in March or April on the first Sunday following the full moon after the spring Equinox. In the New Testament we are told that some of the followers of Jesus visited his tomb on the Sunday after his crucifixion on Friday and the Sabbath which would have been a day of rest on the Saturday. They found that he was no longer in the tomb where he had been laid. Jesus later appeared to his disciples that day and on a number of other occasions and in one instance to over 500 people. The early Christians moved the Sabbath to Sunday to signify the finished work of Jesus through his resurrection
For Christians the resurrection is proof that Jesus was the manifestation of God on earth in human form and not just a good teacher or prophet. He gave Christians the hope of new birth into an everlasting spiritual life in Jesus which also transforms Christians, by God’s grace, through our own faith and away from spiritual death and dependence on the law.
Easter eggs are usually given as gifts on Easter Sunday most commonly in the form of hollowed out chocolate which is both a symbol of the empty tomb and of rebirth. The rebirth aspect of egg giving was celebrated in pagan cultures particularly in Germany where candy was given, eggs were decorated and Easter egg hunts were organised.