An Unofficial Feast Day

I wrote a little bit yesterday about “The Second Sunday of Easter.”  I remarked that it is statistically the lowest-attended worship service day in the entire year.  This holds true across regional, denominational and size-of-church lines.  There are numerous studies performed by both religious and secular institutions that bear this out.

On a much less-studied note I offer a comment based on personal experience and observation.  That reflection is that many of us refer to the Sunday after Easter as one of three guaranteed “Associate Ministers’ Preaching Days.”   In congregations that have multiple staff (and especially multiple pastoral staff members) the preaching load of the Associate or Assistant or Co-pastor (the position goes by a lot of different names) varies widely.  Some preach regularly and do so every three or four weeks.  In other situations, the “second” pastor may preach irregularly if at all.  But, take it to the bank, the alternate preacher will take the pulpit the Sunday after Easter, the Sunday after Christmas and (in my United Methodist tradition) the Sunday of the convening of Annual Conference (when the Senior Pastor often wants to make a quick getaway, perhaps even leaving for the conference site the day before).

In my own experience, I was in one situation where I preached every Sunday.  I preached one Sunday morning and three/four Sunday evenings each month.  Our evening service had attendance in the high eighties (which was more than I would usually have in attendance in any one of the circuit churches I had pastored previously).  In another Associate Minister’s appointment, I did not have a regular schedule, but was assigned a preaching date about every five weeks.  Later in that same church I again did not have a regularly-scheduled preaching date, but my rather arbitrary time came around on the average of every eight to nine weeks.

But, no matter what the arrangement, one of those magical days when I took the pulpit was the Sunday after Easter.  So, that point on the calendar has a bit of sentimental significance for me.  It was one of those – sometimes few – times in the year when I could act out my “call to preach” in its fullness.  As an Associate Pastor, I was not alone.

Thanks be to God for the Sunday after Easter!

The Second Sunday of Easter

Today is The Second Sunday of Easter.  That is its liturgical designation.  A lot of people look at it as “the Sunday after Easter.”  Statistically, it is the lowest-attended Sunday for worship services and other church gatherings of the entire year.  That has always messed with my mind.  I mean, EASTER -- The Feast of the Resurrection of the Lord, the defining moment in our Christian faith -- was one week ago.  Now, everybody’s gone.  Even those marginal, usually-there to frequently-there church attenders take the day off.  It is the day for the hard-core church participant.

People believe that it’s over.  They have found the eggs.  They have eaten the candy.  They no longer view their Easter outfits as “new.”  It is back to business as usual.  That has always messed with my mind.

Liturgically of course we are barely underway.  The church recognizes the “Season of Easter” as working itself out over the course of about seven weeks.  Indeed, “Easter Season” or “Eastertide” are terms that non-liturgical communions tend to employ.  It is not unheard-of for more formal denominations to use these terms, but that is usually to avoid repetition.  Liturgical churches will usually choose the title “The Great Fifty Days.”  The celebration itself runs from the Easter Vigil on the night of Holy Saturday/Easter Sunday and runs through Evening Prayer on the Day of Pentecost.  It is a good, long draught out of the year that the church dedicates to the celebration of the Resurrection. 

As for today itself, it is the end of the Octave of Easter and much of the church observes these eight days as a solemnity (feast of the highest rank).  That in itself would cause some folks to embrace the day and not abandon it.  In the history of the church – especially in the English-speaking world – there was a time when the church called today “Low Sunday,” I can only imagine that it was because of some of the thoughts I mentioned above.  Mercifully, the church has all but abandoned such a label.

So, go to church.  Enjoy the elbow room.  Pray that folks don’t forget worship until next Easter.

Subsequent readings for Easter

The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) has suggestions for Easter Evening, after having provided readings for Easter Vigil and the Main Service of Easter.  It contains this note regarding these lessons:

The following readings are for occasions when the main (eucharistic) Easter service must be late in the day. They are not intended for Vespers (Evening Prayer) on Easter Evening.

It is an interesting note.  I assume that the lectionary compilers believe that a congregation has already conducted some earlier service – either a vigil or sunrise service – before a worship time containing these readings come around.

The Gospel Reading for this grouping is Luke 24:13-49, which is the somewhat lengthy account of the walk to Emmaus.   That event takes place over in the day on the first day of the week, but it is certainly not at daybreak.  The empty tomb scenario is narratively in the past.  This is not to quibble, but I merely observe that this is a story that the contemporary reader has trouble assigning to Easter Day.  The storytelling is there, and there is no doubt.  But I think that we are so accustomed to hearing this on the week after Easter, or the week after that, that we double-take at the thought of rehearsing these events Easter Day.  I don’t know that I have ever been a part of “occasions when the main (eucharistic) Easter service must be late in the day.”  Even in churches that usually conducted evening worship, we always took Easter night off.

In considering this, I think that it is too bad that I have never been in a situation that allowed for this time-line.  It is a powerful story, but when I consider the possibilities of concluding the Feast of the Resurrection of the Lord with this tale I boggle at the possibilities.

So, I am a day (three, actually) late and a dollar short.  But, I intend to live with the Emmaus passage a while before too much time passes.

Easter Monday

The question came to me: “Is Easter Monday a thing?”  The answer is, “Well, yes and no.”  In the U.S., the answer is essentially in the negative.  There are a few U. S. locations that take today as a holiday or have taken the day in the past.  But these are isolated instances.

On the other hand, there are at least 119 individual countries that observe this day as a holiday in one form or another.  These tend to be nations or regions where Eastern Christianity dominates.  In some areas, if a saint’s day falls on Easter, the church commemorates the saint on the following day – Easter Monday.

Easter Monday shows up in a lot of calendars, both printed and on-line.  Some versions of Outlook and Google calendars show this date as some sort of observance, for instance.  Filofax has some versions of its calendar refills that refer to the day.

I think that there can be a tremendous letdown immediately after The Feast of the Resurrection of the Lord.  An extended observance is not a bad idea.

The Feast of the Resurrection of the Lord

Today is The Feast of the Resurrection of the Lord.  “Easter” is a word that means “spring.”  It is not a church word.  It is not a faith word.  And it is absolutely not a biblical word.  Oh, I know that the church has appropriated all sorts of words and customs and calendar dates through the years.  And this is not the beginning of a futile campaign to ban “Easter” from the language.  What I do want to do is to highlight the true, festive nature of our celebration.  It is not a day for abbreviations or shorthand. It is a day for new Easter outfits.  The men should wear suits and ties.  The women should wear hats, maybe even gloves.  This is a season when high school girls are wearing $1000 dresses for a one-time trip to the prom.  How is it that they then wear jeans with holes in the knees to church today?  The fellows look like they’re headed for the golf course.  What in the name of the Easter Bunny happened to “Sunday best?”

I understand that it is not important (in the great scheme of things) what we wear, but the vital thing is where we are.  I also recognize that “informal” and even “casual” are important concepts for some congregations.  People give the excuse for their lack of participation in church activities as, “The people there are too stuffy.  They wear starched collars and high heels, and that is just not my thing.”  That’s a great excuse, isn’t it?  Question: if God phoned for an appointment; told you to be at the Pearly Gates at 2 o’clock a week from Thursday, and that St. Peter would escort you to the throne of Grace from there, what would you wear?

I know that the day is about the Empty Tomb and not about clothing.  But what we wear is a sign of the importance we attach to a given event.  I don’t know of anyone who has seriously sought a new job that didn’t check the mirror before they went through the door for the interview.  The Old Testament has scores of accounts of the apparel that people are to wear in certain religious circumstances.  Matthew 22 has a grace-filled story about folks gathered from the highways and byways to attend the wedding banquet of the son of the king.  But there was one guest who did not wear the appropriate wedding garment, and the king commanded that this offender be ejected from the proceedings.

I understand priorities.  And I don’t want to be a wet blanket.   But it is The Feast of the Resurrection of the Lord.  What is truly appropriate?