Season of EASTER

Supper at Emmaus (1602/3) by Michaelangelo da Caravaggio, National Gallery, London

Easter isn’t just a Sunday — it’s a season. One day out of 365 is hardly sufficient to celebrate the great mystery of our faith — that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Accordingly, the season of Easter lasts seven weeks (a “week of weeks”), spanning the 50 days from the Sunday of the Resurrection to Pentecost Sunday and encompassing the festival of the Ascension of the Lord.
The season of Easter is intended to be a joyful time for celebrating the presence of the risen Christ in the church. If your congregation doesn’t already celebrate the Lord’s Supper (a feast with the risen Lord) each week, the season of Easter is an excellent and appropriate time to explore this practice.
Of course, Easter really isn’t just a season either. In the fullest sense, Easter is a new way of life — in which we are “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11), called to “walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). Every year, for fifty days, the church celebrates and rehearses this new way of life in the Season of Easter — as we await its completion in the fullness of Christ’s reign.