SEASONS | RESOURCES
Eastertide
Eastertide is the season where we live into the wonder of resurrection. It’s not just a single Sunday but fifty days of practicing joy, cultivating delight, and noticing the signs of new life all around us. As Lent invited us into fasting and reflection, Eastertide calls us into feasting, celebration, and the good work of tending what is growing.
“Easter is the time to sow new seeds and plant a few cuttings. If Calvary means putting to death things that need killing for us to flourish, then Easter means planting, watering, and training up things that ought to be blossoming—filling the garden with color and perfume, and in due course, bearing fruit.”
ABOUT THE SEASON
“If Lent is a time to give things up, Eastertide ought to be a time to take things up. Champagne for breakfast again–well, of course.
Christian holiness was never meant to be merely negative. Of course, you have to weed the garden from time to time; sometimes the ground ivy may need serious digging before you can get it out. That’s Lent for you. But you don’t want simply to turn the garden back into a neat bed of blank earth.
Easter is the time to sow new seeds and to plant about a few cuttings. If Calvary means putting to death things in your life that need killing off if you are to flourish as a Christian and a truly human being, then Easter should mean planting, watering and training up things in your life (personal and corporate) that ought to be blossoming, filling the garden with color and perfume, and in due course bearing fruit.
The forty days of the Easter season, until the ascension, ought to be a time to balance out Lent by taking something up, some new task or venture, something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving.
You may be able to do it only for six weeks, just as you may be able to go without beer or tobacco only for the six weeks of Lent. But if you really make a start on it, it might give you a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures you never dreamed of. It might bring something of Easter into your innermost life. It might help you wake up in a whole new way. And that’s what Easter is all about.”
— N.T. Wright
Rhythms
RESOURCES FOR EASTER
Eastertide invites us to celebrate, delight, and notice the signs of new life around us. These simple rhythms are designed to help you root your faith in the places you inhabit daily—practicing joy, connection, and gratitude as you live out the hope of resurrection in your neighborhood.
Prayer for Eastertide
You bring light and life to Your people.
Your mercies are our delight.
You are preparing joy for us and us for joy;
We pray for joy, wait for joy, long for joy.
Your death is our life, Your resurrection our joy,
Your ascension our hope, Your presence our peace.
We cling to the promise of the resurrection:
Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again.
We celebrate with courage all You have done today
And hold on to hope for all You will do tomorrow.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever shall be:
World without end!
Amen!
Eastertide Prayers
Practice for Eastertide
We participate in Eastertide by delighting in the gifts of God. A way to cultivate delight is through a Life Giving List. Each column should have a range from requiring only a few minutes to multiple days, from no cost to a significant financial investment.
The secret to this list is 3-fold: 1) getting as concrete as possible about what is life giving to you, 2) intentionally planning and calendaring time, 3) having a posture of gratitude towards God when you participate in anything on your Life Giving List.
“A Life Giving List is a guide to practice delight in the gifts God has given. Nothing is too trivial or too extravagant.”
Eastertide Practices
Places for Eastertide
Eastertide invites us to notice the places around us where life is springing up—parks, community gardens, outdoor spaces, or even quiet corners of your neighborhood. Where do you see resurrection at work? Where might you go to experience joy, connection, and new life?
Consider visiting places that invite reflection, laughter, or wonder. Pay attention to what these places stir in you—and what they reveal about God’s ongoing work of renewal.
Eastertide Places
Recommended Books
RESOURCES FOR EASTERTIDE
We’ve curated a collection of resources to guide your Eastertide journey— readings, and reflections to deepen your connection with God, your neighbors, and the places you call home.
Slow down. Take joy. Step into the new life Easter promises.
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Living the Resurrection: The Risen Christ in Everyday Life
Eugene Peterson’s invites us into the stories of the Resurrection to experience wonder through the eyes of the biblical witnesses, and discover how the practices and perspectives of resurrection life transform your daily work, your daily meals, and your daily relationships.
Living the Resurrection has had a profound influence on my ministry and writing. Peterson is among the few who write about the Resurrection in the present tense―as a reality for us to live into and experience in the here and now. I’m grateful for this summons to not just believe but experience the center of our faith―today.
Robert Gelinas, Lead Pastor of Colorado Community Church, author of Discipled by Jesus
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Surprised By Hope
Wright convincingly argues that what we believe about life after death directly affects what we believe about life before death. For if God intends to renew the whole creation—and if this has already begun in Jesus’s resurrection—the church cannot stop at "saving souls" but must anticipate the eventual renewal by working for God’s kingdom in the wider world, bringing healing and hope in the present life.
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Bitter and Sweet: A Journey into Easter
Tsh Oxenreider, author of Shadow and Light: A Journey into Advent, uncovers what it means to participate in the liturgical traditions of Lent including artwork and music that illuminate the impact - both personal and global - of Jesus’s death and resurrection.
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Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter
The Plough’s Bread and Wine provides readings ecumenical in scope, and represents both classic and contemporary Christian writers.
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Resurrection means that the worst thing is never the last thing.
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Frederick Buechner
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Rhythms to help you root your faith in place.
Sacred Place provides a beautiful bi-weekly publication to share the rhythms of a Prayer, Practice, and Place as simple ways to help cultivate love for our neighbors and neighborhoods.