When You Celebrate Easter, You Celebrate Resurrection

When the Council of Nicaea met in 325, they decreed that Easter, the resurrection of Jesus, is to be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon that falls on or after the first day of spring. With the stroke of a pen, Easter and spring would forever hold hands.

Since I live in Maine where spring is mercurial and arrives in her own good time, I got used to hiding Easter eggs around the last rags of melting snow. I gave thanks that, as a boy-mum, I didn’t have to figure out how to keep a little girl from freezing to death in a skimpy Easter dress. Most of all, I have learned to celebrate resurrection in a season in which signs of death still linger.

This year is particularly poignant as my husband and I clean out the home and attend to the final affairs of a dear friend who died during Advent. She won’t be here to join us for Easter dinner. Her home is an empty shell, and she can’t even laugh with us about the craziness of the tiresome paperwork surrounding her demise and the dissolution of her mortal trappings.

Even so, we rejoice with her because she is finally free of the constraints of a sick body. She awaits, in Christ, the promised resurrection, and we smile, often, because, as in life, she is blazing a trail ahead of us, reminding us that death and resurrection are also on the agenda for us.

Regardless of all the post-Nicaean cultural trappings we’ve assigned to Easter, at its heart of hearts, Easter is a celebration of resurrection—Christ’s and eventually our own.

Regardless of all the post-Nicaean cultural trappings we’ve assigned to Easter, at its heart of hearts, Easter is a celebration of resurrection—Christ’s and eventually our own.

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Chapter 2 reminds readers of the historical connection between Easter and baptism as the way we share in Jesus’s death and new life. This may come as a surprise to readers whose association with Easter is breakfast casseroles and ham dinners. Add to this the Easter surprise of Chapter 3 that it’s not merely a day, but an entire season comprising fifty days of joyous celebration!

Chapter 4 reminds readers that, from the outset, Easter has been a mission-driven event. The entire book of Acts effectively makes the case that without the resurrection, there’s no way the disciples would have “turned the world upside down.”

Chapters 5 and 6 break out of the mold of the traditional Easter story that fades out and goes to the credits somewhere in the vicinity of the tomb, ignoring Christ’s ascension and his great gift of the Holy Spirit. Both are massively encouraging and theologically significant events, and I appreciated Hill’s affirmation of the liturgical traditions of the church connected with the Ascension and Pentecost.

May your celebration of the entire story of Easter heighten your understanding of Jesus’s person and work. May you be filled with hope that lifts you above your circumstances and with purpose rooted in the reality of a living Christ. And may you find that your prayer life comes alive because Jesus is alive and seated at the right hand of the Father and his Spirit is alive in you this very day.

Jesus is risen!
He is risen indeed!
Alleluia!

What Other Reviewers Are Saying

“For those new to the Christian faith, Wesley Hill presents a moving biblical introduction to this climactic season in the Christian year. And for those whose sensibilities may be dulled by familiarity with the story, he offers an eye-opening, poetic account of the meaning of Easter, richly informed by close attention to the various biblical accounts of Jesus’ resurrection and to the church’s ancient liturgical traditions. An excellent resource for preachers, study groups, and anyone interested in pondering the mystery of the resurrection.” — Richard B. Hays, George Washington Ivey Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Duke University and author of Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels

“Wesley Hill has presented us not with a single Easter lily but a lavish bouquet: scriptural narrative and liturgical drama, baptism and the church, Ascension and Pentecost, hope and healing, and a charge to bear the good news to the world. He wonderfully reminds us that Easter is neither an event trapped in the past nor a single holiday once a year, but fifty days of rejoicing the risen Lord in preparation for his final victory.” — Sarah Hinlicky Wilson, author of Seven Ways of Looking at the Transfiguration

Holding You in the Light,

In his lovely little book about #Easter, @wesleyhill has provided program notes for worship, and he begins in the first chapter by tethering Easter to the historical event of Christ’s resurrection.@ivpress

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