2026 — Lectionary primer

The Resurrection of Our Lord

Easter Day

One-year lectionary · Job 19:23–27 · 1 Corinthians 5:6–8 · Mark 16:1–8

Easter Day is the feast of feasts — the day the Church has proclaimed "Christ is risen!" since the first century. The joy is so vast it cannot be contained in a single day but extends through an entire Octave and then the Great Fifty Days of Eastertide. This primer covers the shape of the service, the three appointed readings, and the stories behind the four hymns.

Lectionary Primer PDF

The shape of the service

Historical Background

In the earliest centuries, the crucifixion and resurrection were celebrated together as a single festival called the Pascha (the Christian Passover). By the fourth century, this unified observance divided: Good Friday became a day of mourning, and Easter Day alone proclaimed the resurrection. The Easter celebration was originally tied to the Vigil, which lasted through the night; new converts were baptized at dawn, clothed in white garments, and received the Lord's Supper as the whole Church burst into alleluias.

During the Middle Ages, the Vigil was pushed earlier into Saturday, separating it from Easter morning, though twentieth-century reforms restored it to its proper nighttime hour. The joy of the resurrection is considered too vast for a single day: Easter immediately extends into the Octave (eight days of celebration) and then into the Great Fifty Days of Eastertide, culminating in Pentecost.

How the Service Unfolds

The Return of the Alleluia: After refraining from "Alleluia" throughout Lent, the Church exhales with exuberant singing on Easter morning. The Alleluia defines every part of the liturgy.

The Paschal Candle kindled at the Vigil remains near the altar throughout the Easter season, a visual confession of the risen, glorified body of Christ.

The Introit from Exodus 15: Unlike nearly every other Sunday, the entrance chant is drawn from the Red Sea victory song, connecting God's Passover deliverance to Christ's triumph over death.

Victimae Paschali Laudes: The ancient eleventh-century sequence hymn ("Christians, to the Paschal Victim") is sung before the Gospel, marveling at the combat where the Prince of Life died yet now reigns immortal.

The readings at a glance

Old Testament

Job 19:23–27

Job cries out, "I know that my Redeemer lives." The Hebrew word for "Redeemer" is go'el, the kinsman whose legal obligation was to step in and seek redress for a wronged relative. Christ is the ultimate go'el, entering the court of divine justice to redeem us through His own blood. Job prophesies that this Redeemer will "arise upon the dust" (yaqum) — magnificent resurrection language: while humanity returns to dust, the go'el stands victorious over the grave.

Most staggering of all, Job confesses, "from my flesh I shall see God" (mibsari), expecting not a shadowy, disembodied afterlife but a literal, physical resurrection. Job wanted his vindication chiseled into lifeless rock; God gave him a living Redeemer who would one day roll the rock away from an empty tomb.

Epistle

1 Corinthians 5:6–8

Paul commands the Corinthians to "clean out the old leaven" (zyme, fermented dough symbolizing infectious sin) and then grounds the imperative in a Gospel indicative: "just as you already are unleavened." Through Baptism, God has already made them a fresh, new batch; the Christian life is simply a call to be what God has already made us. The foundation is the ultimate Easter declaration: "Christ, our Passover lamb (pascha), has been sacrificed" (etythe, a divine passive meaning the Father Himself offered the Lamb).

Paul then commands an ongoing celebration (heortazomen, present subjunctive): every day is now an Easter festival lived in "sincerity" (eilikrineia, literally "tested by the light of the sun" and found pure). The old era of death is over; we are a new, unleavened creation living in the brilliant light of the risen Son.

Holy Gospel

Mark 16:1–8

Mark notes the women come "on the first day of the week" (mia ton sabbaton), the "Eighth Day" that initiates the new creation. They arrive proi ("exceedingly early"), the specific time in the Greek Old Testament when God's mighty deliverances become visible — the Red Sea, Hezekiah, Daniel. The stone "is already removed" (apokekylistai, perfect passive: a settled state). Inside, a young man in a white robe proclaims: "You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified One (ton estauromenon, perfect participle: He remains the Crucified One forever). He has risen (egerthe)."

The messenger adds: "Tell his disciples and Peter" — a stunning word of grace for the man who denied Christ three times. Mark's Gospel ends at verse 8 with the women fleeing in fear, placing every reader in the same position: we have not seen the risen Lord with our eyes, yet we have His reliable Word of promise, "just as He told you."

The hymns and their stories

Opening Hymn

"Jesus Christ Is Risen Today"

This hymn traces its roots to a late fourteenth-century Latin song from Bohemia, Surrexit Christus hodie. After passing through several German translations, the English version of the first stanza appeared in an anonymous 1708 London collection called Lyra Davidica, which also introduced the famous triumphant melody known as EASTER HYMN. The original 1708 printing ended each line with a prolonged "Halle — Halleluiah" rather than the standard "Alleluia" we sing today. The fourth stanza, a Trinitarian doxology, was penned by Charles Wesley in 1740 and attached in the nineteenth century. The text brilliantly alternates between statements about the resurrection and invitations to sing praise, confessing that the Christ who suffered to "redeem our loss" has now risen in triumph.

Sequence Hymn

"Christians, to the Paschal Victim" · Victimae Paschali Laudes

This is the only "sequence" hymn in our hymnal. Sequences were ancient choral chants sung before the Gospel reading; most were abandoned after the Reformation, yet this eleventh-century Easter masterpiece — attributed to Wipo of Burgundy — triumphantly survived. Its theological legacy is immense: it directly inspired the medieval folk hymn "Christ is Arisen" (LSB 459), which in turn inspired Luther's "Christ Jesus Lay in Death's Strong Bands." The text is structured as a dramatic dialogue between a narrator and Mary Magdalene, linking the risen Christ to the Passover lamb and marveling at the "stupendous" combat where the Prince of Life died yet now reigns immortal. As early as the thirteenth century, congregations sang this sequence in alternation with the vernacular "Christ is Arisen," a practice our hymnal preserves.

Hymn of the Day

"Christ Jesus Lay in Death's Strong Bands" · LSB 458

Luther's triumphant Easter hymn is an expansion of the older medieval Leise "Christ is Arisen" (LSB 459), itself inspired by Victimae Paschali laudes. During the Reformation, Lutherans sang its stanzas in direct alternation with that ancient sequence. Stanza 1 echoes Acts 2:24, declaring it impossible for death to hold Christ. In stanzas 3 and 4, Luther versifies the theology of his 1520 treatise The Freedom of a Christian: the crucifixion is a "strange and awesome strife," a "mighty duel" in which Christ, by the "wedding ring of faith," takes on His bride's sins and death, swallowing them up entirely — for His divine life is stronger and more invincible than the grave.

Closing Hymn

"Christ Is Risen! Hallelujah!"

This joyful nineteenth-century Easter hymn was written by John Samuel Bewley Monsell (1811–1875), an Irish Anglican clergyman and prolific hymn writer who penned roughly 300 hymns over his lifetime. Monsell was a passionate advocate for lively, spirited congregational singing and published this text in his 1863 collection Hymns of Love and Praise. The hymn moves through the entire Easter narrative in four stanzas: from the victorious rising of our "victorious Head," through the open gates of gladness where death and hell bend before the Victor, to the glorious morrow that transforms sorrow into joy ("He was dead, but now is living; He was lost, but He is found"), and finally to the triumphant declaration that "death or hell shall us enthrall" nevermore. The closing line, "Let us rise and keep the feast," echoes Paul's Easter command in 1 Corinthians 5:8, sending us out from the service to live every day as an Easter celebration.