Easter–it’s both a day and a season. It’s the day Christians celebrate the empty tomb, the resurrection of Jesus, and his triumph over the grave. But it’s also a season on the Church calendar. 

We observe Advent to prepare for Christmas. We observe Lent to prepare for Easter. We attend beautiful worship services on Easter and perhaps gather with friends and family for a meal, but then what? “[My] biggest problem starts on Easter Monday,” N.T. Wright says in Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. He continues,

“I regard it as absurd and unjustifiable that we should spend forty days keeping Lent, pondering what it means, preaching about self-denial, being at least a little gloomy, and then bringing it all to a peak with Holy Week…and then, after a rather odd Holy Saturday, we have a single day of celebration.”

On the Church calendar, Easter continues for 50 days, up to Pentecost Sunday. N.T. Wright suggests that we fill those 50 days with celebration and maybe, after a season of giving something up, we take something up, “some new task or venture, something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving.”

Mark Roberts offers a few ideas in his article on the season of Easter. Life for Leaders writer Jennifer Woodruff Tait describes one of her 50-day practices in this devotional. If prayer is something you want to take up, why not use 52 Workday Prayers, Part 1 or Part 2 as a guide? 

If you’re looking for other resources to help you reflect on the meaning of Easter, we recommend the following. 

Previous Life for Leaders Devotions on The Resurrection

• Women as Witnesses to the Resurrection: A Striking Implication
  Life for Leaders Devotion by Mark Roberts
• The Resurrection of Jesus: Not an Idle Tale
  Life for Leaders Devotion by Mark Roberts
• Is the Resurrection of Jesus an Idle Tale?
  Life for Leaders Devotion by Mark Roberts
• The Easter Difference: Knowing Resurrection Power
  Life for Leaders Devotion by Mark Roberts
• On the Monday After Easter, Does Easter Make a Difference to My Work?
  Life for Leaders Devotion by Mark Roberts

Additional Resources

Resources on the Resurrection

Banner image by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash.