Easter is a Season Not Just a Day

By Pastor Bill – I love Easter. I love the event and the promise proclaimed from it: repentance and forgiveness of sin in the name of the one raise, Jesus Christ.  Easter Sunday is awesome. The special music, preaching, full sanctuary, powerful singing, beautiful flowers, and joyful energy make Easter the best Sunday of the year. Celebrating the way we do is fitting given that death has been defeated! What a joy!  Easter Sunday is something we Christians in America do well.  Yet, for all the wonder of Easter Sunday, we are missing something.  Easter is not just a day, it is a Season.

Easter is a 50 day season that ends on Pentecost Sunday.  In these 50 days we celebrate the appearances of the risen Christ to his followers-we light the Christ Candle each Sunday symbolically remembering and celebrating the 50 days that our Lord sojourned with his followers after the resurrection . Traditionally, our Sunday lectionary readings focus on these appearances and on his words that celebrate who he is as the one raised from the dead.  The season ends when Jesus ascends so that the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, can come which of course is what we celebrate on Pentecost Sunday.

The point is simple.  Easter is not over.  Easter is actually celebrated every Sunday but especially during the season of Easter. What am I getting at?  Well, why not keep celebrating the way we do on Easter Sunday? Let’s fill the pews and sing with all our might!  I know its spring break and some are away traveling which is good and wonderful.  Nevertheless, even though we “pull out all the stops” on Easter Sunday lets keep it going all through the 50 days.  Maybe the Sundays after Easter don’t have to been the lowest attended of the year because after all, Easter is a season, not just a day.