Moving from Contemplation to Celebration
A Feature Review of
Easter: The Season of the Resurrection of Jesus
Wesley Hill
Hardcover: IVP Formatio, 2025
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Reviewed by Stephen R. Clark
In recent years, a quiet movement of sorts has been gaining momentum to reclaim what Esau McCaulley refers to as “ancient practices of the Christian faith.” Easter: The Season of the Resurrection of Jesus by Wesley Hill, is one of the “Fullness of Time” series addressing key points in the church year. McCaulley is the series editor. Other titles available cover Lent, Pentecost, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, and coming in 2026, Ordinary Time.
Hill opens his book describing a Great Vigil of Easter he participated in more than 20 years ago in England. Held on the grounds of a large church, the group moved from one location to another, mostly in the dark, listening to a series of scripture readings. Finally, they entered the church and gathered around the baptismal font where some infants were baptized. The group was encouraged by the presiding bishop (N.T. Wright) to, “Remember your baptism!”
They then proceeded into the sanctuary as the sun brightened the rose window above them and the bishop yelled, “Alleluia, Christ is risen!” All responded with “He is risen indeed.” Then Hill recalls, “people around me took noisemakers – bells, kazoos, xylophones, maracas, and all manner of homemade instruments – out of their purses and backpacks. The nave suddenly resembled a football stadium, with whoops and hugs and smiles and cheers.”
This introduction sets the tone as Hill encourages a more thoughtful, embodied, and rambunctious celebration of Easter and all its “terror, joy, and earth-shattering excitement.”
The first chapter recounts how Easter is presented in the Gospels and the writings of Paul. Hill says, “Before anything else, Easter is a piece of news, it is an announcement about an occurrence, a short and shocking story.” Hill walks us through key points of each Gospel’s retelling, especially focusing on the reactions and responses of Christ’s followers as they hear the news and process the event. Hill reminds us of how truly norm-bending this was for them.
In chapter two, Hill connects baptism to resurrection, the idea that we “come alive again after being buried.” Calling resurrection a “corporate hope” he states, “Baptism is a way of saying – through ritual and gestures – that our lives and hopes are bound up with what happened on Easter Sunday.” Through baptism we can more tangibly identify with the power and reality of Christ’s death and resurrection, as well as our own dying to the old and being born anew.
Hill wrestles with the timing of Easter in chapter three. While it’s always on a Sunday, which Sunday varies, prompting it to be referred to in the Prayer Book as a “moveable feast.” Hill offers various explanations for this shiftiness including some detailed instructions that N.T. Wright likens to a mash-up of mathematics and train timetables. At the same time, Hill quotes Wright’s appreciation for Easter-as-a-moving-target, “It is gloriously right that Easter should keep us guessing, should jump out on us from behind the apparently locked door of ordinary time.” Hill also points out that the Easter season extends up to 50 days, leading to Pentecost, offering suggestions on how to sustain the celebration.
Chapter 4 turns more theological, examining the deep significance of resurrection as opposed to merely resuscitation. Jesus is our forever resurrected Lord, while Lazarus and a handful of others were merely resuscitated to die again later. Hill declares that “The resurrection of Jesus, in [the disciples’] preaching, was not a pacifying metaphor or an eternal dream but an actual incursion of divine power into the middle of real space-time history.” He explains how, shown in Acts, that the resurrection was the impetus to embolden the disciples to take the Gospel into the world. That “almost overnight [they were transformed] from a fearful huddle…to a barn-burning band of fearless preachers….” The same should be true for us.
While Easter typically celebrates the resurrection, the ascension (and Feast of the Ascension) gets short shrift according to Hill. Chapter 5 serves as a corrective for ignoring, downplaying, or being embarrassed by the ascension of Jesus, clarifying that it “means he reigns over all things with the authority of God himself.” It is in embracing the ascension that allows us to understand, “Jesus ha[s] been raised and exalted not for some arcane purpose but precisely so that he could be present in a newly empowering, comforting way.”
Hill concludes by firmly connecting Easter to Pentecost and its empowerment. He writes, “The redemption of the world, begun before the foundation of the world, inaugurated in Bethlehem, accomplished on the cross, confirmed in the ascension and enthronement of Christ, is fulfilled in the sending of the Spirit, and all the components of the great work are at last in place.”
The book is a brief yet rich discussion of all-things-Easter, encouraging us to see and experience the full season of Easter. Instead of being over-somber, we are encouraged to celebrate the season with “whoops and hugs and smiles and cheers.” And then, quoting Gerard Manley Hopkins, to “let Him Easter in us” throughout the year.
Stephen R. Clark
Stephen R. Clark is an award-winning writer who lives in Lansdale, PA with his wife, BethAnn, where they are members ofImmanuel Church. His website iswww.StephenRayClark.com. He is a member of the Evangelical Press Association and managing editor of theChristian Freelance Writers Networkblog. His writing has appeared in several publications. He writes an occasional blog about being a Christian introvert atwww.QuietlyFaithful.com.
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