Easter Deserves More than Just One Day-- 3 Ways to Keep Celebrating
- Rachel Dawson
- Updated Mar 24, 2016
You can always tell that Christmas is coming, even before it’s close. Radio stations start playing Christmas carols before we’ve even eaten all the Halloween candy, and commercials beckon us to start our shopping before we’ve even bought our Thanksgiving turkeys. Our nativity scenes are set up for weeks, and our advent calendars keep us counting down to the day baby Jesus entered our world. Christmas isn’t celebrated on just one day-- it gets a whole, long season.
Easter on the other hand? Usually, Christians dress up for one fancy Sunday service and forget about it all days later.
“Why do we spend an entire season of the year thinking about and celebrating Christmas, but just a weekend thinking about and celebrating the impact of the resurrection,” Trevin Wax asks.
In “Why Does Christmas Get a Season but Easter only a Day,” Wax presents a sound argument for why Easter should be celebrated for longer than just one celebratory church service, and I have to say I agree.
Both Christmas and Easter are celebrations of massive significance for Christians, but we’ve made one last so much longer than the other. It seems like we’re cheating Easter by not giving it a whole season of our attention.
“I’m simply saying that Easter morning is the turning point of world history and the defining moment for Christianity,” Wax explains. “This is the day when God’s new world began. It’s the day when our own resurrection from the dead was secured. It’s the first time in history when someone went through death and came out the other side – victorious, in glory, mysteriously new and yet the same. Since this is true, why do we only celebrate for a day and not a season?”
Here are three ways we can celebrate the glorious resurrection of our Savior for more than just one weekend:
- Create Easter traditions with your family. Many families establish traditions for the Christmas season, and the same can be done around Easter. Gather together to read Scripture and pray through each day of Holy Week (we have a great prayer guide here!) or bake special treats with your kids like these empty tomb rolls. Even other spring activities like planting a vegetable garden or flowers can become a tradition you connect with the significance of the new life we have because Jesus rose.
- Listen to Easter-focused worship music. Wax asks, “Since we’re used to hearing Christmas music for weeks around Christmas, why can’t we create playlists and sing Easter music this time of year?” Gather up songs in your music library that mention Jesus’ death, His resurrection, the grave, the cross, the empty tomb, new life, victory, or anything else that reminds you of this holy weekend, and create your own Easter playlist! Having these songs playing will keep you focused on the glory of Easter for more than just one Sunday.
- Tell the Easter story often. Many Easter services include the call and response greeting of “Christ is risen, He is risen indeed.” Even just repeating that phrase or keeping it written on a post-it note on your mirror will be a reminder that Jesus died and rose again for you. Read through the Gospels in the weeks both leading up to and following Easter and really study what Jesus did and said. The more you familiarize yourself with the words of the Bible, the more you’ll discover about who Jesus is and what it means for your own life.
“We are the only people in the world who visit the grave of the founder of our faith to see what isn’t there," Wax says. “That’s a big deal, and it’s time we made it that way.”
How are you celebrating Easter this year? Do you have any special traditions that help you celebrate the resurrection in this season?
Publication date: March 24, 2016
Rachel Dawson is the editor of BibleStudyTools.com
