What is Easter Sunday?
Principal Feast: The First Day of the Week after the Full Moon following the Spring Equinox. Following the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), the Anglican tradition calculates this using fixed ecclesiastical tables, rather than direct astronomical observation of the equinox and full moon.
The Anglican calendar is ordered by a hierarchy of holy days, each carrying a different weight of observance. At the very top sit the seven Principal Feasts — the highest days of the liturgical year, taking precedence over every other day or observance. They are Easter Day, Christmas Day, Ascension Day, the Day of Pentecost, All Saints’ Day, Trinity Sunday, and the Epiphany, listed on page 688 of the BCP 2019. Easter Day stands first in that list — and first in every meaningful sense. It is the feast on which the entire Christian year turns, the event without which every other feast is groundless, the day that the collect describes simply and completely as “the day of the Lord’s resurrection.”
Easter Day is not the culmination of a story that began at Christmas. It is the event that makes the Christmas story worth telling. The incarnation, the ministry, the passion, the cross — all of it moves toward this morning. Paul makes the logic explicit in 1 Corinthians 15:17: “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:17, ESV) Every other article of Christian faith depends on the resurrection being true. Every other feast in the calendar derives its meaning from Easter. This is why the BCP appoints more liturgical provision for Easter Day than for any other day in the year — three services, a Vigil, a season of fifty days, and a preface that the Church sings from Easter through Pentecost.
The Biblical Event
The resurrection accounts differ in detail across the four Gospels — the number of women, the precise sequence of events, the exact words of the angels — but they are unanimous on the central facts: the tomb was empty, the stone was rolled away, and the risen Christ appeared to his disciples. The differences in the peripheral details are themselves evidence of authenticity; coordinated fabrication produces tidier agreement. What the evangelists share is the overwhelming, disorienting reality of an empty tomb and a living Lord.
In Year A, the Principal Service appoints John 20:1–10, the account of Mary Magdalene and the two disciples at the empty tomb. Mary arrives while it is still dark, sees the stone removed, and runs to tell Peter and the Beloved Disciple. They run to the tomb, stoop in, and find the burial cloths lying there — not torn away in haste but folded and set aside, a detail that speaks of deliberate care. And then verse 8: “then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed.” (John 20:8, ESV) He saw and believed. What he saw was absence — the absence of a body that should have been there. And from that absence, faith was born. Easter faith has always been this shape: seeing what is missing and understanding what it means.
Year B appoints Mark 16:1–8, the earliest and most spare of the resurrection accounts. The women arrive at the tomb with spices, find the stone rolled away, and encounter a young man in white who says: “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.” (Mark 16:6, ESV) Mark’s Gospel ends — in its original form — with the women fleeing in trembling and astonishment, saying nothing to anyone because they were afraid. It is the most unsettling Easter account in the canon, and it is also the most honest about what resurrection feels like from the inside: not triumphant and tidy but overwhelming, frightening, and larger than any response can contain.
Year C appoints Luke 24:1–12, where the women find the stone rolled away and two men in dazzling apparel who ask the question that echoes through the entire Easter season: “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” (Luke 24:5–6, ESV) The question is not rhetorical. It is diagnostic. The women had come to anoint a corpse. They were looking for Jesus in the category of the dead. The angel’s question reorients the entire search: you are looking in the wrong place. The living are not found among the dead. He has risen.
The Theological Significance
The resurrection of Jesus is not a resuscitation. Lazarus was raised from the dead and died again. Jesus was raised to a life that death no longer has any claim upon. Paul makes the distinction in Romans 6:9: “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.” (Romans 6:9, ESV) The resurrection is the emergence of a new mode of human existence — bodily, recognizable, but no longer subject to decay or death. Jesus eats with his disciples after the resurrection. He can be touched. His wounds are visible. And he passes through locked doors and vanishes from sight. The resurrection body is continuous with the crucified body and discontinuous with it at the same time. It is the body that death could not hold — and it is the firstfruits of what awaits all who are in him.
Colossians 3:1–4, appointed at the Principal Service across all three years, presses the resurrection into the present life of the Church: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” (Colossians 3:1, ESV) The resurrection is not only a past event to be celebrated. It is a present reality to be inhabited. Those who are baptized into Christ’s death are also raised with him. Easter Day is the celebration of what has already happened to everyone who belongs to Christ — and a summons to live accordingly.
Acts 10:34–43 is appointed as the first reading at the Principal Service across all three years, regardless of which Gospel is read. Peter’s sermon to Cornelius’s household is the earliest example of Easter preaching: the announcement of the resurrection as news, addressed to those who were not there to see it. Peter does not argue for the resurrection philosophically. He testifies to it personally: “But God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.” (Acts 10:40–41, ESV) We ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. The resurrection is not a theological proposition. It is a meal remembered by people who were there. Easter preaching has always been this: testimony, not argument.
Psalm 118:14–17, 22–24, appointed across all three years, is the psalm of Easter: “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24, ESV) The psalm was sung at the Passover, and Jesus quoted it in his final week in Jerusalem. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The one whom the authorities condemned and the crowds abandoned is the one whom God has vindicated. Easter is the day the rejected stone is revealed as the cornerstone of everything.
The Three Services of Easter Day
Easter Day is unique in the Anglican calendar in having three appointed services, each with its own propers, found on page 723 of the BCP 2019. No other feast in the year is given this provision. It reflects the ancient practice of the Church gathering multiple times on this day — beginning in the darkness of Holy Saturday night and continuing through the day — because no single gathering is sufficient to contain what Easter means.
The Easter Vigil is the most ancient Christian service and the most theologically complete liturgy in the Anglican calendar. It begins in darkness — the church unlit, the congregation gathered outside or in an unilluminated nave — and opens with the lighting of the new fire and the Paschal candle. The candle is carried through the darkness as the deacon or priest chants the Exsultet, the ancient Easter proclamation that announces the resurrection with a joy that has not dimmed in fifteen centuries. The Vigil includes a series of Old Testament readings tracing the whole arc of salvation history from creation through the exodus and the prophets — the darkness filling slowly with the story of God’s faithfulness before the light of resurrection breaks. The Vigil culminates in baptism and the first Eucharist of Easter. When it is observed, it is the climax of the entire liturgical year.
The Early Service appoints the same readings across all three years: an Old Testament reading from the Vigil lessons, Psalm 114, Romans 6:3–11, and Matthew 28:1–10. Romans 6 is the baptismal text — buried with him, raised with him — which connects the early morning service to the baptismal heart of the Vigil. Matthew 28 is the first resurrection appearance: the women at the tomb, the earthquake, the angel, and then Jesus himself meeting them on the way.
The Principal Service appoints the readings that vary by year: Acts 10:34–43 and Psalm 118:14–17, 22–24 are constant across all three years; the Gospel varies, appointing John 20 in Year A, Mark 16 in Year B, and Luke 24 in Year C. The evening service appoints the Emmaus road account from Luke 24:13–35 across all three years — the story of the risen Christ who walks unrecognized with his disciples, opens the Scriptures to them, and is known in the breaking of bread.
The BCP 2019 Collect and Preface
The BCP 2019 appoints the following collect for Easter Day on page 609: “Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may, by your life-giving Spirit, be delivered from sin and raised from death; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.” The collect moves from the accomplished fact — death overcome, the gate of everlasting life opened — to the present petition: deliver us from sin and raise us from death. The resurrection of Christ is not merely a past event to be admired. It is the ground of the Church’s present prayer that God would do in us what he has done in his Son. An alternate collect is also appointed on page 610 for use throughout Easter week.
The Preface of Easter, found on page 154 of the BCP 2019, is used at every Eucharist from Easter Day through the Day of Pentecost: “But chiefly are we bound to praise you for the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; for he is the true Paschal Lamb, who was offered for us, and has taken away the sin of the world; who by his death has destroyed death, and by his rising to life again has won for us everlasting life.” (BCP 2019, p. 154) The preface links the resurrection to the Passover: Jesus is the true Paschal Lamb, the one to whom every Passover sacrifice pointed. His death destroys death. His rising wins everlasting life. For fifty days, from Easter through Pentecost, this preface is sung or said at every celebration of the Eucharist — a sustained proclamation of the resurrection as the ground of all Christian worship.
Easter in Anglican Worship
Easter Day opens the Great Fifty Days of Eastertide, the oldest and most joyful season in the Christian year. From Easter Sunday through Pentecost, there is no fasting. The Alleluia, which is suppressed throughout Lent in many Anglican parishes, is restored with full exuberance. The Paschal candle, lit at the Vigil, burns at every service throughout the season as a visible sign of the resurrection light that death could not extinguish. White and gold vestments mark the celebration throughout.
Anglican worship on Easter Day is the fullest expression of what corporate Christian worship is meant to be: the gathered people of God, united in the confession that death has been defeated and the Lord is risen, proclaiming that resurrection in Scripture, sermon, and Eucharist. Every Sunday in the Anglican calendar is, in one sense, a little Easter — the weekly commemoration of the day the Lord rose from the dead. But Easter Day itself is the Sunday of Sundays, the feast that all other Sundays anticipate and reflect.
The Paschal greeting has been exchanged by Christians since antiquity. The priest or deacon greets the congregation: “Alleluia! Christ is risen.” The congregation responds: “The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!” This exchange, used at the opening of the Easter liturgy in the BCP 2019, is one of the oldest liturgical formulas in the Church’s worship. It is not a performance of joy but a mutual confession of the fact on which all Christian joy rests.
Observing This Feast
Easter Day always falls on a Sunday and requires no transfer. As the first of the seven Principal Feasts, it takes absolute precedence over every other observance. Nothing displaces Easter. The propers for the feast are found on page 723 of the BCP 2019.
To observe the feast: if possible, attend the Easter Vigil — or at minimum, begin Easter Day before dawn. The resurrection was discovered in the darkness, before the sun rose, by people who came expecting grief and found joy. The early hour is not ceremony; it is participation in the shape of the event. Pray the collect from BCP 2019, p. 609. Read the appointed Gospel for the year: John 20:1–10 in Year A, Mark 16:1–8 in Year B, Luke 24:1–12 in Year C. Read Acts 10:34–43 and hear Peter’s testimony: we ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. Pray Psalm 118:14–17, 22–24 as the Church’s Easter psalm, and let verse 24 be the day’s refrain: this is the day the Lord has made. Read Colossians 3:1–4 and ask the question it raises: am I seeking the things that are above, where the risen Christ is seated? Let the Paschal greeting open the day: Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia.
Conclusion
Easter Day is the ground of everything. The empty tomb is not one Christian doctrine among many. It is the event on which every other Christian claim rests. If Christ has not been raised, the faith is futile. If he has been raised — and the Church confesses that he has, that this is the testimony of those who ate and drank with him after he rose — then death is not the last word, sin does not have final dominion, and the gate of everlasting life is open.
The collect prays that we would be delivered from sin and raised from death by the same life-giving Spirit who raised Christ from the dead. The preface declares that by his death he destroyed death, and by his rising he won for us everlasting life. Easter is not the anniversary of a past victory. It is the present announcement of an accomplished and permanent reality. The Lord is risen. He is risen indeed. “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24, ESV)