Easter Is a Season!

Five months ago, I began preparing my Easter message which I will share at First United Methodist Church in Lancaster on Sunday, April 4. We preachers work extra hard on this particular sermon because there's so much at stake on this one Sunday of the year.

How does one go about conveying the good news of Jesus' victory over sin and death on this one day? There's so much that we want to say in this one Easter message. We want to talk about hope, new life, fresh beginnings, forgiveness of sins, eternal life, changing the world, the fulfillment of God's covenant, as well as a number of other themes related to Easter.

Because one day is not enough to celebrate the good news of Easter, the church has set aside a whole season to celebrate Jesus' resurrection. The church has a great name for this season; "the Great Fifty Days." From April 4 through May 23, Pentecost Sunday, the church will celebrate and explore the good news of Easter.

Easter is season and is too wonderful to confine to just one day on the calendar each year. It needs a full fifty days for us to celebrate it for all its worth. So have a blessed Easter season and to all the preachers out there, relax, you don't have to try to say it all on April 4.

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