Easter is a season, not just a day.

The other day I attended a meeting that was initiated with a prayer. In the prayer, God was thanked for the beauty of the day, the bounty of our lives, the fellowship we enjoy and the holy season of Easter that just past. Now I know I should have been deep in spirit of prayer and should not have noticed, but I did and it made me sad. Easter has not passed. It is a season.

Liturgically, Easter is not a day, but a season in the church year. The season lasts 50 days until the day of Pentecost, which this year comes on May 31. Actually, the day of Easter is what determines the entire Christian calendar. The day of Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon falling on or after March 21, the first day of spring. After the day of Easter is set, then all the moveable days of the church year (Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Pentecost, etc.) can be set. This means that our calendar, as well as our lives, revolves around the resurrection of our Lord. Easter is a season, not just a day.

The Easter season is the oldest of any in the church year. It is hundreds of years older than Advent and Christmas. As Robert Wetzler and Helen Huntington write in their book, Seasons and Symbols, “Easter is the keystone in the arch of Christianity. Without it, everything else crumbles. We sing ‘Christ is risen! Alleluia!’ because it is essential to our understanding of God’s promises of eternal and renewed life.”

This is why the concept of the season of Easter is so important. The resurrection cannot be contained in one day. So we are given fifty days to get into the habit of observing how God is renewing our lives. God is constantly recreating new ways for us to experience the resurrection for ourselves. If we will stay alert to this possibility throughout the season of Easter, and on through the year, maybe we will find ourselves proclaiming “Christ is risen!” one day in October.