O God, who for our redemption didst give thine only begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection hast delivered us from the power of the enemy: Grant us to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

The time that the people of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. It was a night of watching by the Lord, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; so this same night is a night of watching kept to the Lord by all the people of Israel throughout their generations.

And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the passover: no foreigner shall eat of it; but every slave that is bought for money may eat of it after you have circumcised him. No sojourner or hired servant may eat of it. In one house shall it be eaten; you shall not carry forth any of the flesh outside the house; and you shall not break a bone of it. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. And when a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.”

Thus did all the people of Israel; as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. And on that very day the Lord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their hosts.

–Exodus 12:40-51

THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS, Caravaggio, 1601 – National Gallery, London
The wine is not mentioned in The Bible, probaby because Christ’s blessing of the bread was enough for the disciples to recognise him. The risen Christ once again performs the Eucharist before the Emmaus pilgrims. pic.twitter.com/bbId6mRSmu

— The Virtual Wine Museum | Le Musée Virtuel du Vin (@VIRTWINEMUSEUM) April 17, 2022

This is the real meaning of Easter…

No tabloid will ever print the startling news that the mummified body of Jesus of Nazareth has been discovered in old Jerusalem. Christians have no carefully embalmed body enclosed in a glass case to worship. Thank God, we have an empty tomb.

The glorious fact that the empty tomb proclaims to us is that life for us does not stop when death comes. Death is not a wall, but a door. And eternal life which may be ours now, by faith in Christ, is not interrupted when the soul leaves the body, for we live on…and on.

There is no death to those who have entered into fellowship with him who emerged from the tomb. Because the resurrection is true it is the most significant thing in our world today. Bringing the resurrected Christ into our lives, individual and national, is the only hope we have for making a better world.

“Because I live ye shall live also.”

That is the real meaning of Easter.

–Peter Marshall (1902-1949), The First Easter

The Resurrection of Christ by Nicolas Bertin, c. 1730 pic.twitter.com/rC4C0VlqnW

— Solas (@solas_na_greine) February 16, 2025

Now. Christian, change thy note a moment. “Come, see the place where the Lord lay,” with joy and gladness. He does not lie there now. Weep, when ye see the tomb of Christ, but rejoice because it is empty. Thy sin slew him, but his divinity raised him up. Thy guilt hath murdered him, but his righteousness hath restored him. Oh! he hath burst the bonds of death; he hath ungirt the cerements of the tomb, and hath come out more than conqueror, crushing death beneath his feet. Rejoice, O Christian, for he is not there — he is risen. “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”

Read it all.

Easter Sunday

"O Death, where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory? Christ is risen, and you are overthrown. Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life reigns." – St. John Chrysostom pic.twitter.com/AnTEP951Rm

— Memento Mori (@TempusFugit4016) April 5, 2026

If I had a Son in Court, or married a daughter into a plentifull Fortune, I were satisfied for that son or that daughter. Shall I not be so, when the King of Heaven hath taken that sone to himselfe, and married himselfe to that daughter, for ever? I spend none of my Faith, I exercise none of my Hope, in this, that I shall have my dead raised to life againe. This is the faith that sustains me, when I lose by the death of others, and we, are now all in one Church, and at the resurrection, shall be all in one Quire.

–John Donne (1572-1631) [my emphasis]

Happy easter everyone…

Caravaggio pic.twitter.com/zvEWthyHY5

— Ahmet Duran Hergün (@AhmetDuranHergn) April 5, 2026

‘It ought to be noticed at this stage that the Christian doctrine, if accepted, involves a particular view of Death. There are two attitudes towards Death which the human mind naturally adopts. One is the lofty view, which reached its greatest intensity among the Stoics, that Death ‘doesn’t matter’, that it is ‘kind nature’s signal for retreat’, and that we ought to regard it with indifference. The other is the ‘natural’ point of view, implicit in nearly all private conversations on the subject, and in much modern thought about the survival of the human species, that Death is the greatest of all evils: Hobbes is perhaps the only philosopher who erected a system on this basis. The first idea simply negates, the second simply affirms, our instinct for self-preservation; neither throws any new light on Nature, and Christianity countenances neither. Its doctrine is subtler. On the one hand Death is the triumph of Satan, the punishment of the fall, and the last enemy. Christ shed tears at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane: the Life of Lives that was in Him detested this penal obscenity not less than we do, but more. On the other hand, only he who loses his life will save it. We are baptized into the death of Christ, and it is the remedy for the fall. Death is, in fact, what some modern people call ‘ambivalent’. It is Satan’s great weapon and also God’s great weapon: it is holy and unholy; our supreme disgrace and our only hope; the thing Christ came to conquer and THE MEANS BY WHICH HE CONQUERED.’

–Miracles, emphasis mine

Easter Sunday – Mary Magdalene meets a 'gardener' BM, 17thC)

Happy Easter!
Beannachtaí na Cásca Oraibh! pic.twitter.com/kCh6UQhfry

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) April 5, 2026

Holy God, holy and mighty, who hast called us together into one communion and fellowship: Open our eyes, we pray thee, as you opened the eyes of thy servant Tikhon, that we may see the faithfulness of others as we strive to be steadfast in the faith delivered unto us, that the world may see and know Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Spirit, be glory and praise unto ages of ages. Amen.

Today we commemorate Saint Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow, Enlightener of North America

Read the account: https://t.co/DlyJyMMjXy

More saints commemorated today: https://t.co/pu5iqBFru6

Music downloads & other resources: https://t.co/Kr2umoteTU #saints #feastsandsaints pic.twitter.com/uMYRfigoew

— Orthodox Church OCA (@ocaorg) April 7, 2026

O Almighty God, hear thy people who are met this day to celebrate the glorious resurrection of thy Son our Lord; and lead them on from this festival to eternal gladness, to the joys that have no end; through the same our Saviour Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.

'A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.'

– From I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth, with pictures taken in College Garden here at Westminster Abbey.

Wordsworth was born #onthisday in 1770. He is one… pic.twitter.com/ljiVhdbhrl

— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) April 7, 2026

Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.

–1 Corinthians 15:12-19

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! From everyone at Durham Cathedral, we wish you all a very happy Easter pic.twitter.com/EzbFM9s9Kx

— Durham Cathedral (@durhamcathedral) April 5, 2026

From there:

MOST glorious Lord of Lyfe! that, on this day,
Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin;
And, having harrowd hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:
This joyous day, deare Lord, with joy begin;
And grant that we, for whom thou diddest dye,
Being with Thy deare blood clene washt from sin,
May live for ever in felicity!

And that Thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love Thee for the same againe;
And for Thy sake, that all lyke deare didst buy,
With love may one another entertayne!
So let us love, deare Love, lyke as we ought.

The Holy Women at the Empty Tomb greeted by an Angel:

"Quid quaeritis viventem cum mortuis?"

BL Lansdowne 383; the 'Shaftesbury Psalter'; England; 12th century; f.13r @BLMedieval pic.twitter.com/Zx4j0KnDDx

— Ennius (@red_loeb) April 6, 2026

“A story that is any good can’t be reduced, it can only be expanded. A story is good when you continue to see more and more in it, and when it continues to escape you. In fiction two and two is always more than four.”

–Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1957) p. 102

Gustave Moreau, Christ and Mary Magdalene (Noli me Tangere), c.1889 pic.twitter.com/mnshxOW0XS

— Solas (@solas_na_greine) April 6, 2026

The resurrection was as inconceivable for the first disciples, as impossible for them to believe, as it is for many of us today. Granted, their reasons would have been different from ours. The Greeks did not believe in resurrection; in the Greek worldview, the afterlife was liberation of the soul from the body. For them, resurrection would never be part of life after death. As for the Jews, some of them believed in a future general resurrection when the entire world would be renewed, but they had no concept of an individual rising from the dead. The people of Jesus’ day were not predisposed to believe in resurrection any more than we are.

Celsus, a Greek philosopher who lived in the second century A.D., was highly antagonistic to Christianity and wrote a number of works listing arguments against it. One of the arguments he believed most telling went like this: Christianity can’t be true, because the written accounts of the resurrection are based on the testimony of women””and we all know women are hysterical. And many of Celsus’ readers agreed: For them, that was a major problem. In ancient societies, as you know, women were marginalized, and the testimony of women was never given much credence.

Do you see what that means? If Mark and the Christians were making up these stories to get their movement off the ground, they would never have written women into the story as the first eyewitnesses to Jesus’ empty tomb. The only possible reason for the presence of women in these accounts is that they really were present and reported what they saw. The stone has been rolled away, the tomb is empty and an angel declares that Jesus is risen.

Read it all.

Happy Easter!
Peter Paul Rubens: 'The Resurrection of Christ', 1611-12.
O.-L. Vrouwekathedraal, Antwerp. 17th century. pic.twitter.com/0uNXGXnjAV

— Andrea Zuvich (@17thCenturyLady) April 5, 2026

Teach thy Church, O Lord, we beseech thee, to value and support pioneering and courageous missionaries, whom thou callest, as thou didst thy servant James Lloyd Breck, to preach and teach, and plant thy Church in new regions; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever (moved from Friday).

Today the Episcopal Church celebrates James Lloyd Breck, Priest, 1876 https://t.co/DhExxD2sbf

Inspired by the Oxford Movement, Breck served as a missionary priest in the newly opened territories of America's West, founding Nashotah House & Seabury Divinity School pic.twitter.com/Cuta3W2dpR

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) April 2, 2022

O Lord, who by triumphing over the power of darkness, didst Prepare our place in the New Jerusalem: Grant us, who have this day given thanks for thy resurrection, to praise thee in that city whereof thou art the light; where with the Father and the Holy Spirit thou livest and reignest, world without end.

Good Morning and a happy new week – an image from today’s early walk (towards Barston) #treeclub #stormhour pic.twitter.com/ad8RLWOCG4

— Terry (@No1GhostDog) April 6, 2026

And when the sabbath was past, Mary Mag′dalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salo′me, bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had risen. And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?” And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back—it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were amazed. And he said to them, “Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.” And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid.

–Mark 16:1-8

Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. pic.twitter.com/gZuS022EJr

— Richard Tarsitano ⚓️ (@GodRemembrancer) April 5, 2026

Listen to it all and you can read more about it, including finding the lyrics, at Lent and Beyond.

If I had a Son in Court, or married a daughter into a plentifull Fortune, I were satisfied for that son or that daughter. Shall I not be so, when the King of Heaven hath taken that sone to himselfe, and married himselfe to that daughter, for ever? I spend none of my Faith, I exercise none of my Hope, in this, that I shall have my dead raised to life againe. This is the faith that sustains me, when I lose by the death of others, and we, are now all in one Church, and at the resurrection, shall be all in one Quire.

–John Donne (1572-1631) [my emphasis]

"He is not here; he has risen, just as he said"
Hallelujah#EasterSunday #HeHasRisen #EasterJoy pic.twitter.com/sQEDq4zoTO

— English Cathedrals (@engcathedrals) March 31, 2024

Thanks be unto thee, O Christ, because thou hast broken for us the bonds of sin and brought us into fellowship with the Father.

Thanks be unto thee, O Christ, because thou hast overcome death and opened to us the gates of eternal life.

Thanks be unto thee, O Christ, because where two or three are gathered together in thy Name there art thou in the midst of them.

Thanks be unto thee, O Christ, because thou ever livest to make intercession for us.

For these and all other benefits of thy mighty resurrection, thanks be unto thee O Christ.

In the Christian celebration of Easter quite particularly an affirmation of the whole of existence is experienced and celebrated. No more rightful, more comprehensive
and fundamental an affirmation can be conceived.
– Josef Pieper, In Tune with the World 49 pic.twitter.com/JVgkHx8iAM

— Jacob Sherman (@Shermanicus) April 5, 2026

The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy.

— J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

The Irish word ‘Cásc’ (in English, Easter) derives from the Romance language line of ‘Pascha’ via Latin & Greek, and so back to Aramaic.

(Met Museum) pic.twitter.com/paesqvMoZe

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) April 5, 2026

Lord of all life and power,
who through the mighty resurrection of your Son
overcame the old order of sin and death
to make all things new in him:
grant that we, being dead to sin
and alive to you in Jesus Christ,
may reign with him in glory;
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit
be praise and honour, glory and might,
now and in all eternity.
Amen.

'He is not here, he is risen as he said'

On Easter morning, the three Marys hurry to where Jesus is buried, only to find the tomb empty and an angel guarding it. Glass by Didron of Paris, 1863 at Feltwell St Mary, Norfolk.

Feltwell: https://t.co/BugPZEEoqU pic.twitter.com/xqZUxj90bZ

— Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk) April 5, 2026

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens,
praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels,
praise him, all his host!

Praise him, sun and moon,
praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord!
For he commanded and they were created.
And he established them for ever and ever;
he fixed their bounds which cannot be passed.

–Psalm 148:1-3

'Alleluia! Christ is risen!'

A very happy Easter to you from all of us at Westminster Abbey pic.twitter.com/WKro9JKqsb

— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) April 5, 2026

All night had shout of men, and cry
Of woeful women filled His way;
Until that noon of sombre sky
On Friday, clamour and display
Smote Him; no solitude had He,
No silence, since Gethsemane.

Public was Death; but Power, but Might,
But Life again, but Victory,
Were hushed within the dead of night,
The shutter’d dark, the secrecy.
And all alone, alone, alone,
He rose again behind the stone.

–Alice Meynell (1847-1922)

There's a rumour, a whisper. Something's happening. Could it be? #HolySaturday @gandkchurch @cofe pic.twitter.com/4xJz6oTEpv

— Craig Huxley-Jones (@FatherHux) April 15, 2017

“I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”

–East Coker

The Entombment of Christ by Titian, 1520, Louvre. pic.twitter.com/9AnvRl1P41

— Cody J. Swanson (@CodyJSwanson) April 4, 2026

Jesus dies. His lifeless body is taken down from the cross. Painters and sculptors have strained their every nerve to portray the sorrow of Mary holding her lifeless son in her arms, as mothers today in Baghdad hold with the same anguish the bodies of their children. On Holy Saturday, or Easter Eve, God is dead, entering into the nothingness of human dying. The source of all being, the One who framed the vastness and the microscopic patterning of the Universe, the delicacy of petals and the scent of thyme, the musician’s melodies and the lover’s heart, is one with us in our mortality. In Jesus, God knows our dying from the inside.

–The Rt. Rev. Dr. Geoffrey Rowell

Holy Saturday

"It is easy to be faithful to God when everything goes smoothly, when His cause triumphs; but to be equally faithful in the hour of darkness, when, for a time, He permits evil to get the upper hand – this is hard, but it is the most authentic proof of real love." pic.twitter.com/kDRR6vflDj

— Memento Mori (@TempusFugit4016) April 19, 2025

O God, whose loving kindness is infinite, mercifully hear our prayers; and grant that as in this life we are united in the mystical body of thy Church, and in death are laid in holy ground with the sure hope of resurrection; so at the last day we may rise to the life immortal, and be numbered with thy saints in glory everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Entombment of Christ (c. 1635-163)
by Rembrandt pic.twitter.com/gLlXkcZixD

— Marysia (@marysia_cc) April 3, 2026

“By the grace of God” Jesus tasted death “for every one”. In his plan of salvation, God ordained that his Son should not only “die for our sins” but should also “taste death”, experience the condition of death, the separation of his soul from his body, between the time he expired on the cross and the time he was raised from the dead. The state of the dead Christ is the mystery of the tomb and the descent into hell. It is the mystery of Holy Saturday, when Christ, lying in the tomb, reveals God’s great sabbath rest after the fulfillment of man’s salvation, which brings peace to the whole universe.

–The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, para. 624

The Lamentation of Christ. #HolySaturday #HolyWeek pic.twitter.com/CIDRagT5Ru

— Marlene T. Diaz (@academicknight) April 3, 2021

HOW life and death in Thee
Agree !
Thou hadst a virgin womb
And tomb.
A Joseph did betroth
Them both.

–Richard Crashaw (1613-1649)

BUON SABATO SANTO AGLI AMICI DELLA PAGINA DELL'ARTE

Caravaggio, Deposizione nel sepolcro, 1602-1604. Olio su tela, 300×203 cm. Città del Vaticano, Pinacoteca Vaticana. pic.twitter.com/WN5GyceWj2

— La Pagina dell'Arte (@LaPaginaArte) April 4, 2026

O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

For Holy Saturday, a pyx, c500 AD, with the women at Christ’s tomb

(Met Museum) pic.twitter.com/zNMpCmnFI2

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) April 4, 2026