Tuesday, April 11, 2017

50 Days

Even clergy fall into the trap of asking another clergy on Easter Monday, “how was your Easter?” It’s almost like asking someone on January 1, 2017: how was your 2017? Easter Day is one day, but it is only the first day of a fifty-day Easter season, going all the way to Pentecost.

Mostly, during Easter Season the readings will focus on the resurrection and stories about the early Christians. We rarely read from the Old Testament during Easter season. It sometimes proves challenging for preachers to be creative every Sunday, and every year, but it is never tiring. It is always exciting to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and how this event frees us from guilt and enables us to be more like Christ.

We tend to drop the Confession and Absolution part of our worship to remind us that the forgiveness won for us by the resurrection is indeed effectual. We don’t entirely forget the need for repentance, so we still recite the Lord’s Prayer, and include the need for forgiveness in a petition in the Prayers of the People, and we participate in the Holy Eucharist.

So, until the Day of Pentecost you can ask how my Easter is going.

Now, you don’t have to make your collection of Easter eggs last the whole fifty days, but they are a nice symbol for the whole season. In pre-Christian celebrations in Europe the egg symbolized rebirth and was associated with the spring-time. The early Christians also used the egg, specifically as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus. It’s hard outer shell was like the tomb that Jesus was buried in, and from which he was raised. From this tomb came new life for all of us to share.


Personally, when it comes to chocolate ones, I like the hollow eggs, they remind me that the tomb was empty. Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

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