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Each year we gather in our worshiping communities and exclaim with Christians around the world:
“Alleluia! Christ is risen.
Christ is risen, indeed. Alleluia!”
Many of us set aside the word “alleluia” in worship during the season of Lent and now exclaim it once again with joy at the celebration of the resurrection of Our Lord on Easter. The music sung by the worshiping assembly and played on instruments takes on a more joyful character. On Easter Sunday we may notice more people in attendance at worship than usual. It is a festive day! Maybe you participated in an Easter Vigil the previous evening, gathering with others around a new fire and hearing the great saving stories of salvation from the Hebrew Scriptures and the first Easter Gospel. But after our festive celebration on Easter Sunday, what comes next? What does it mean not just to celebrate Easter but to live as Easter people?
It may feel like Easter Sunday is a finish line after the journey from Advent to Christmas, then journeying through Lent into Holy Week. But the church gives us 50 days of Easter every year, not just one Sunday. Our joyful Easter proclamation continues for several weeks. We may notice other things in our worship space during these 50 days, such as a paschal candle (sometimes called the Easter candle) lit each time we gather for worship during the Easter season. That same flame is also lit to accompany baptisms and funerals alike, reminding us that in Christ, death and life meet, and life has the final word.
We are an Easter people when we allow Christ’s resurrection to shape our living—not only on Easter Sunday but every day, in every season and in every circumstance—joyful or troubled. “The Use of the Means of Grace,” the ELCA’s statement on the practice of word and sacrament, reminds us: “Jesus Christ is the living and abiding Word of God. By the power of the Spirit, this very Word of God, which is Jesus Christ, is read in the Scriptures, proclaimed in preaching, announced in the forgiveness of sins, eaten and drunk in the Holy Communion, and encountered in the bodily presence of the Christian community” (Principle 1).
We live as Easter people because we are formed by word and sacrament. In baptism we are joined to Christ’s death and resurrection. Gathered at Christ’s table for communion, we taste again the mystery of Christ’s dying and rising, receiving the life that reshapes our own. We are fed by the word of God proclaimed in Scripture and preaching that awakens our faith. In the covenant God made with us in baptism, we commit “to serve all people, following the example of Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship, page 237).
Easter is not only a season that the church observes. The celebration of resurrection is a way of life.
Easter is a season when these practices are revived with joy, shaping us anew as we are sent into the world together. Even as we sing Easter’s joyful songs, we don’t ignore pain. We remember Christ’s own pain and suffering, a reminder that the Risen One carries wounds that remain part of his story. We live as Easter people in a world that knows heartbreak and carries deep sorrows of its own, and we don’t pretend otherwise.
A prayer of lament in All Creation Sings asks God to “keep us working and praying for the day when your justice will roll down like waters, and your righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Replenish our strength and stir up our hope as we look for signs of your coming reign” (page 61).
In times of national and global crisis, we acknowledge grief, stand with one another in sorrow, and dare to believe that the resurrection teaches us to face the world’s wounds with courage, compassion and an enduring hope that endures. Holding both joy and lament, we learn again that Easter people are formed in community to recognize Christ in every place of need, and to carry resurrection hope where it’s most longed for.
Easter people are sent people. We end where we started, empowered for mission. We don’t keep the resurrection joy to ourselves—we carry it into our neighborhoods, our relationships, our daily lives. “Christ is Living/Cristo vive,” an Easter hymn with roots in Argentina, reminds us of our sending charge:
“Gracias demos al Dios Padre
que nos da seguridad,
que quien cree en Jesucristo
vive por la eternidad.”
“For the sureness of salvation
let us sing, ‘Thanks be to God!’
Christ is risen! We are living!
Spread the word of grace abroad.”
—All Creation Sings 934
Easter is not only a season that the church observes. The celebration of resurrection is a way of life. We are gathered by the Spirit to be grounded in worship and shaped by the cross. We are then sent out once again by God into mission in the world, strengthened as Easter people whose daily lives bear witness to the risen Christ. Thanks be to God.
To learn more
Why don’t we use alleluias during Lent? How do we use a paschal candle? Find the answers to these and other frequently asked questions about worship at Worship FAQs.
