The Christian Church has historically remembered the Passover, His suffering, the Crucifixion, burial, and then celebrated the Resurrection over a long period of days and weeks. I think sometimes, unfortunately, we Baptists have crammed it all into a very short period of time as far as our worship goes. Even in looking at the "Lord's Day", Sunday, historically we see that both Jewish Christians and Gentiles probably celebrated the Sabbath and the "Lord's Day" side by side in the beginning. As the Christian church spread, the most prominent day became the prominent day of worship eventually crowding out the Saturday/Sabbath concept. In fact, eventually the term "Sabbath" was used interchangeably with - Sunday. Some people now even call Sunday a day of rest. (I think there is Biblical and historical validity to prepare on Friday, rest on Saturday, and celebrate on Sunday, but that's simply my opinion.) At first the Sabbath/Saturday was observed for the entire year as the dark day remembering Christ's full day in the tomb. And of course Sunday was seen as the "Lord's Day" celebrating His Resurrection on that day.
In fact, the first celebration of Easter was not an annual event but a weekly one. To every church, every Sunday was a mini-Easter. For the most part the western church has celebrated Easter on a Sunday, and every Sunday is a mini-celebration of the Resurrection.
Over time Easter Day became Easter Week and Easter Week became Easter Season as far the church's celebration and observance. All of the "history of Easter" seems to wrap up in church history by 300 A.D. Of course the Roman Catholic Church added many holy days to the church calendar throughout the Middle Ages. Protestants tended to downplay the Catholic notion of additional special or holy days. The "free church movement" and American Revivalism tended to simplify the number of special days as well.
While many of the other holy days are left out of Evangelical's calendars, Easter has become an important and regular celebration of the Christian Church since the year after Christ rose from the dead. And . . . it should be, because it represents the central theological truth of our Christian faith. As I said, sometimes for theological emphasis reasons and even sometimes because of simple logistics, we often tend to box it all into a very short period of time. But the important thing is simply that we truly worship - celebrating His resurrection however and whenever we do it with all our heart, in spirit and in truth. mjm
