WORSHIP NOTES
Volume 20, No. 4 ( April 2025)
Easter is not a day—it’s a season!
The Great Fifty Days
“Easter” is the period of eight Sundays [until Pentecost], comprising fifty days, often called as a unit “the Great Fifty Days.” For the explosive force of the resurrection of the Lord is too vast to be contained within a celebration of one day.
The recovery of Easter as “the Great Fifty Days” of the year can move the church along toward a fuller understanding of what the resurrection of its Lord implies. Easter is not one closing day at the end of a lengthy period of Lent. Easter is one extended rejoicing in the resurrection that more than exceeds in length the Lenten disciplines. The first day of the season, Easter Day, is the opening of a protracted celebration, even as the Resurrection is itself the opening to a vast new reality. (Laurence Stookey, Calendar: Christ’s Time for the Church, 54, 56
The Great 50 Days [after Easter] (originally called the Pentecost) were at first far more important than the 40 days of Lent. It is perplexing why modern Christians concentrate on Lent, the season of sorrow, rather than on Easter, the season of joy. Augustine tells us, “These days after the Lord’s resurrection form a period, not of labor, but of peace and joy. That is why there is no fasting, and we pray standing, which is a sign of resurrection. This practice is observed at the altar on all Sundays, and the Alleluia is sung, to indicate that our future occupation is to be no other than the praise of God.” (James F. White, Introduction To Christian Worship, 61–62)
Insights on Easter from Laurence Stookey in Calendar: Christ’s Time for the Church
1. He points out that our common Easter images of springtime, blooming flowers, eggs, etc. are totally Northern-Hemisphere in their orientation: south of the equator Easter falls in the autumn! (p. 53)
2. “For Christians Sunday is the chief festival occasion of the faith. About this there is much misunderstanding. Many active Christians would say that Christmas is their chief festival. Closer to the mark, but still missing it, are those who would say that Easter Day is the principal feast of the church. What is amiss about such assessments? Simply this: No observance that occurs only once a year can connote the continuing work of God in daily life. Therefore the chief festival occurs weekly, and from it all else is derived, including those annual festivities that may be more visible and certainly are the more popular cultural occasions.” (p. 44)
3. “It has become a maxim of late that ‘every Sunday is a little Easter.’ But it would be more accurate to say that ‘every Easter is a great Sunday.’ ” (p. 54)
Resurrection Praise
Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delays,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more just.
Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
With all thy art.
The cross taught all wood to resound his name,
Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.
Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
Pleasant and long:
Or since all music is but three parts vied
And multiplied;
O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.
—George Herbert, “Easter” (1633)