NOTE FOR PASTOR J R FOR SUNDAY, APRIL 7, 2024
This Sunday is known by many names; among them is the Second Sunday of Easter. It may surprise some folks to know that Easter is not a day but an entire liturgical Season. It’s 7 weeks in length and ends on the Saturday right before the Day of Pentecost.
This Sunday is also known as “Low Sunday,” the day Jesus supposedly appeared to “Doubting Thomas” where Thomas stuck his finger into the wound in Christ’s side. In contrast to the high or elevated feelings on Easter, on Low Sunday in many places, voices would be lowered, heads bowed, and it would be acknowledged as a quiet day. The other reason it came to be known as “Low Sunday,” was that Easter Sunday is always one of the highest for church attendance, while the Sunday after Easter generally records one of the lowest of church attendance for the entire year.
I want to introduce you to yet another mostly unfamiliar name for this Sunday. It is also “Holy Humor Sunday.” It was originally called “Bright Sunday,” as this Sunday after Easter was observed as a day of joy and laughter with parties and shenanigans to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection. It came to be called “Holy Humor Sunday” resulting from the idea of some early church theologians that God played a joke on the devil by raising Jesus from the dead.
Join us at Covenant in worship this 2nd Sunday after Easter, “Low Sunday”, in-person, by Zoom, Facebook Livestream, or YouTube to learn more about this unusual and relatively unknown liturgical Sunday. The assigned text from Acts 4 speaks about a unique characteristic of the early church; and my sermon will be “Holy Humor Sunday & Living Out Resurrection Faith,” based on “Acts 4:32-35.”
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