Season of Easter
Easter Sunday is the day of the year when the Christian Church celebrates the resurrection of Jesus the Christ from the dead. Easter lies at the heart of our faith as the central moment of the liturgical year. The early church saw Christ’s resurrection as the central witness to a new act of God in history proclaiming victory of over the Cross – love as stronger than death.
The Season of Easter, like Christmas, is a period of time rather than just a day. It is actually a seven-week season of the church year called Eastertide, the Great Fifty Days that begins at sundown the evening before Easter Sunday when we celebrate the Easter Vigil and lasts for six more Sundays until Pentecost Sunday. Even in churches that traditionally do not observe the other historic seasons of the church year, Easter has occupied a central place as the high point of Christian worship. Easter marks the central faith confession of the early church and has been the focal point for Christian worship, observed on the first day of each week Sunday, since the first century. Sunday was officially proclaimed the day of Christian worship in AD 321.
The Sanctuary colors for Easter Sunday and the Sundays of Easter, including Ascension Day, are white and gold, the colors of sacred days throughout the church year. For the Easter season, white symbolizes the hope of the resurrection, as well as the purity and newness that comes from victory over the Cross. The gold symbolizes the light of the world brought by the risen Christ.
Color used in worship is especially important during the season of Easter. The changing colors of the sanctuary from the purple of Lent to the black of Good Friday provide graphic visual symbols for the moving forward of the Lenten journey. The change of colors for Easter and the following Sundays helps communicate the movement of sacred time as well as personal faith journeys from penitence and reflection to celebration and joy.
Prior to the fourth century, Christians observed Pascha, Christian Passover. Pascha was a festival of redemption, adapted from Jewish Passover and commemorated both the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus as the vehicle for God’s grace. By the fourth century, with an increasing emphasis on Holy Week and Good Friday commemorating Jesus’ passion, crucifixion and death, Easter moved into a distinctively Christian celebration of the Resurrection.
Easter, like Passover, is a movable feast. The date of Easter, is not fixed but is determined by a system based on a lunar calendar adapted from a formula decided by the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring equinox (the day when the sun’s ecliptic or apparent path in the sky crosses the equator, thus making days and nights of equal length). This usually occurs on March 21, which means the date of Easter can range between March 22 and April 25 depending on the lunar cycle.