About Eastertide

Historical Background

Eastertide begins on Easter Sunday, and lasts for 50 days. Easter is the principal holy day during this season; however, this part of the church year also celebrates the Ascension of Jesus.

Reprinted from Book of Worship © 1986 Office of Church Life and Leadership, 2002 Worship and Education Ministry Team, United Church of Christ. Used by permission.

“Easter, in the most ancient celebrations of the church, was a vigil service that began on Saturday night of Holy Week and extended into the dawn of Easter day. The Eastern church has preserved this order without interruption to the present time. In the West, the Easter Vigil is now being reintroduced in many churches. This noctural service announces with great power that ‘certainly the cross and resurrection, seen as a unity, did constitute the new Exodus.’ White is the color for all the services of Easter Day and the Easter season, including the vigil. The services are the most joyful of all the celebrations of the church year. In many churches this Resurrection Day remains the principal festival on which Christian baptism is celebrated.

“Pentecost, the fiftieth day after Easter, closes the Easter season. During this entire period of fifty days, the oldest of the seasons in the church, Egeria [a 4^th-century writer] reported that ‘not a single person fasts.’ Pentecost, borrowed from the Jewish calendar of feasts but transformed by the experience of the church described in Acts 2, originally combined the themes of Christ’s ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit. In the fourth century the two events were separated, and the ascension was placed on the fortieth day after Easter, a Thursday ten days before Pentecost.”

— quoted from the Introduction to Worship in the United Church of Christ, as posted on the UCC Web Site.

Here at Pilgrim Church

Easter Sunday begins with a sunrise service, which is usually co-celebrated with other local churches. Our regularly-scheduled worship service later that morning is a joyous celebration, in contrast to the somber time of the previous Holy Week services. We often have special music, readings, or events during worship to add to the celebration.

Eastertide is—usually —springtime here in New Hampshire. We have ongoing activities to note the change of seasons. In recent years, we have celebrated the Festival of the Christian Home (on Mother's Day). As the end of the school year approaches, we begin the summer season with an all-church picnic, usually within a week or so of Pentecost.