© 2024 The Interpreter Foundation. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
All content by The Interpreter Foundation, unless otherwise specified, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available here.
Interpreter Foundation is not owned, controlled by or affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All research and opinions provided on this site are the sole responsibility of their respective authors, and should not be interpreted as the opinions of the Board, nor as official statements of LDS doctrine, belief or practice.
If we believe the Atonement and Resurrection of the Savior are the ESSENTIAL happenings that teach HE IS THE ANNOINTED ONE that had been looked forward to from the beginning – Perhaps WE (as a Church) should Lead the Way in making EASTER a far more deeply satisfying Physical and Spiritual Experience by TESTIFYING of it for ALL in several ways that are discussed above.
My view has always been for Sacrament esp. “Less talk more Hymns” at the pulpit prior to the hymn being sung.. read the story behind the author of the hymns, embrace their content, and allow the spirit to witness the truth of these sacred words, and the music the hymns create.
Completely idiosyncratic of me, but I consider “Worthy Is The Lamb” a greater piece of music than “Hallelujah” (which is not to say the latter is not great) and I deplore the tendency to make it the final number in any _Hallelujah_ performance.
Due to my Jewish ancestry, my wife insists that we have a “Passover” meal and discuss the obvious typology pointing to the sacrifice of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. As one before commented, we celebrate weekly, the Sacrament, which commemorates the Atonement. The Last Supper was the Passover and Jesus changed it to remember, Him who saves us from the slavery of sin and from death through His resurrection/Atonement. Apostates changed their “Passover” to Easter and according to at least one tradition changed the eating of lamb to ham, to keep the Jews out. I so appreciate my wife’s insistence on our little tradition. It is enough! Simple and meaningful.
Claudia’s proposal is much too complex to be workable, but it does contain some good ideas, the best of which is to delete pagan Easter nonsense from LDS Church worship.
Palm Sunday should contain a song or two to commemorate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem: Maybe Hymn 67 “Glory to God on High,” or Children’s Songbook 66 “Hosanna,” or something about Palms of Victory. Palm fronds could be purchased from a Jewish supplier and used as decor. A short video of the entry could be shown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXy8JJClj-Y .
Passover Seder Meal could be eaten as suggested by Claudia, but Passover does not “commemorate their flight from Egypt,” but rather the meal eaten by Israel on their last nite in Egypt — with sacrificial lamb’s blood on each doorway to prevent entry of the Angel of Death. The meal with roast lamb is symbolic and does not include Jesus. Jesus uses it at the Last Supper to give meaning to his own forthcoming performance as the Lamb of God (instead of the usual Paschal Lamb), which is the center of His sacrificial Atonement by blood, and which we commemorate each Sunday in our own Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Christian seders are done every year in Israel by Christians, and some are done in the USA.
Sunday Sunrise Service is a wonderful idea for Resurrection Morning, in or out of the chapel. It could be a special meeting for the ward or stake very early in the morning.
I love Christmas. But I have often wondered – as the author does – why Christmas is celebrated more than Easter. The resurrection of Christ is the final step of the greatest event of all time: the atonement of Christ in which Christ is the greatest conqueror of all time because He conquered death and sin. Christ achieved the atonement, this most glorious of all events, by doing the following:
– Christ, the First Born, in premortality stood in the midst of billions of spirits and accepted the calling to suffer for all of the sins and pains of these billions of spirits,
– Christ lived perfectly both in premortality and in mortality and experienced ALL, ALL temptations but yielded to NONE, NOT ONE, NONE, and thus qualified to be the sacrificial lamb for all of us, for all of the billions of people.
– Christ used the power of being the only begotten of the Father in the flesh, to refuse to die in Gethsamane when the sins of all the world did POUND and POUND and POUND and POUND and…and…, AND HIS BLOOD DID OOZE FROM EVERY PORE – suffering such that would have killed any other mortal,
– Christ suffered in Gethsamane for all of the sins of all the world through all generations of time; the sins of the world did POUND and POUND and POUND and POUND and…and…, AND HIS BLOOD DID OOZE FROM EVERY PORE – and He refused to die, suffering such that would have killed any other mortal,
– Christ used the power of being the only begotten of the Father in the flesh, to die for us, for – as the apostle John said in the Gospel of John – no one – NO ONE – could take His life; He gave His life willingly.
– Christ conquered the supposedly unconquerable death by being resurrected, thus enabling all of us – every mortal who has ever lived – to live again; and Christ’s suffering, dying, and being resurrected enabled all of us to live with Him and our Heavenly Father if we repent.
That’s what Easter truly represents.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the planned activities to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. I hope it will inspire many of us to think about what we can do to worship during this time period in a more meaningful way. For instance, my Catholic friend sent me a beautiful rendition on video of the Station of the Cross to watch. Another friend shared a poem that she had written about the resurrection of Christ. In my reading group we enjoyed discussing several articles written by Jeff Bradshaw and John Tvedtnes on the Tree of Life which caused us to reference it’s symbolic pattern in the cross. And then on Easter evening we will discuss Joan of Arc, another female witness to God’s continued revelation. Of course General Conference will be a time of recommitment and reflection, much like the sacrament. It will be a highlight of this past month’s study of Christ’s life.
My wife and I have talked about this for years (decades). Go into Desert Book around Christmas and see how many children’s books there are (not to mention ornaments and other knick knacks), then do the same for Easter. The difference is astounding. My wife decided to write a children’s book for Easter and submitted it to Deseret Book. They said they really liked it, but there isn’t really much of a market for Easter kid’s books.
I mentioned this to a friend and his response was that it made total sense. At Christmas you have a baby, angels singing in a field to shephards, stars in the heavens, wise men with gifts, etc. Lots of cuteness to go around. At Easter you have bleeding from every pore, betrayal, suicide, trials, mocking, a crown of thorns, a crucifixion, more suffering, death, and a tomb. You do have a garden and resurrection, but that can’t compete with babies and lambs. I get his point, but Christmas is meaningless without Easter.
Part of the problem is Christmas is also a very secular and commercial holiday. So it naturally gets a boost since so many of our secular neighbors also participate in it. Easter… not so much.
We’ve tried to make Easter more of a big deal with our family, but it is hard. The support structure really isn’t there whether we are talking about the community, the church, stores like deseret book, etc.
There is a first presidency Christmas devotional about 3-4 weeks before Christmas every year. I wish they would do the same for Easter. Though, this is harder since Easter moves around and 3-4 weeks before Easter might conflict with General Conference. Still, I’d like to see the Church kick off the Easter season a month beforehand like we do with Christmas.
Our stake usually has an event where people bring their nativities and Christmas related artwork to the stake center for people to view while musical numbers are being performed in the chapel. I’ve never heard of anyone doing a similar thing at Easter time.
It really is frustrating that Christ’s resurrection is not treated on at least an equal level as his birth.
100% agree. On the Easter Sundays that we are in church they are usually just regular services, with talks on tithing, keeping the sabbath day holy, or family history, things like that. I don’t know if they forget it’s Easter or they don’t care. Our hymnal has (I think) three Easter hymns, there’s something like a dozen Christmas hymns. Sometimes it seems were embarrassed by Easter.
I’ve been thinking about this more since my original comment. I’ve come to realize that in some ways we celebrate Easter year round, unlike Christmas (how often do you hear talks and lessons about Christ’s birth except in December?) We celebrate Easter with ever partaking of the sacrament. Every ordinance points to Easter. Many general conference talks are about Easter. Many ward talks and lessons are about Easter. By Easter, I mean any talk about the Atonement of Jesus Christ are about Easter. The fact is, we are absolutely saturated in Easter, we just might not recognize it at first.