Growing up Mormon (as we were called back in the day), I never remember Easter Sunday being anything special at church. Maybe a talk about the resurrection, but nothing like my non-LDS friends celebrated in their churches. New clothes were purchased, women wore hats special for the Easter, it was a big deal.
Over the ears, I’ve read on the bloggernacle about how poor we Mormons do Easter. But maybe there is change in the air? In our Stake, it was announced a few weeks ago, that every ward was to have a “special” sacrament meeting about Easter, and that we should invite our non-member friends. I actually made a comment in Elders Quorum that in the past our Easter Services were nothing I’d want to invite a non-member to, and I would wait until I saw how “Special” this sacrament would be before I thought about inviting a non-member in coming years. I got a few laughs and more than a few eye roles, but I think most silently agreed.
Last Sunday a member of the Stake Presidency attended, and he said he thought that it was a church wide mandate to have a “Special” sacrament for Easter.
So what did you do in your ward today for Easter? Was it better than years past? Was it Stake mandated, or did your ward just decide to do it? Do you remember great Easter services from years past? How can we as Mormons make Easter services better?
Wheat & Tares 
I have nothing to add, not having attended SM yet. I just want to say “out loud” how happy this makes me, that we’re even going to TRY to actually “talk of Christ” and “rejoice in Christ” on Easter. I am optimistic and look forward to attending myself and reading about others’ experiences.
“Growing up Mormon” in Wyoming, I remember church at Easter as very special—new clothes, special Easter music & talks centered on the Savior. I tried to continue the tradition with my children but at church in Utah it was absorbed in business as usual where Mother’s Day & Pioneers were more celebrated than Jesus Christ. Easter Sacrament Mtg maybe got a mere mention, possibly a hymn but churned out usual Topic Sunday where the Savior usually didn’t make the cut. How did we get there? Hopefully that was then and this is now.
I’m 65 and grew up Mormon in Southern California, and Easter was a pretty big deal when I was a kid. There were lots of new clothes, there were hats, there were lots of flowers, and always a lot of music. I’ve thought about this since reading Clark Goble‘s post at Times and Seasons about how we celebrate Easter in the church. Why did we change? I think part of the answer may lie in some other things about Easter that I remember from my childhood. We didn’t have spring vacation back then it was Easter vacation. That was what it was officially known as on school calendars and handouts. At school we did lots of art projects at that time of year with Easter bunnies, Easter eggs and other symbols of Easter. Of course now on any of that is forbidden. Unlike Christmas which has become both a religious and a cultural holiday, Easter is no longer a big part of the general culture, it has now become purely a Christian religious observance. I wonder if that has influenced how we celebrate Easter in our church? The people creating our sacrament meeting programs are not professional clergy they are just guys with jobs and lots of responsibilities trying to do their best. Were the Easter celebrations in church I remember as much cultural celebration as religious? Were they a big deal because easter itself was a big deal and on the minds of the people in charge? And as Easter’s cultural presence has receded has it also receded in the minds of the people creating our sacrament programs? None of this is an attempt to excuse the fact that we don’t celebrate Easter like we should be doing, just an attempt to understand the changes I’ve seen.
I hear this whole “Mormons don’t do anything for Easter” thing a lot, but it’s never been my experience. Sure, my ward never put on the same kind of production as the Catholic Church across the street, but we always had multiple special musical numbers and Easter themed talks. Sometimes, it was a full Easter program. When I went to BYU, it was the same story, except one year a member of my stake out together a multi-Stake choir and orchestra for a concert on Good Friday.
Having said that, I would love to see greater emphasis on Easter. I don’t think our religious lives should be driven by the calendar, but I do like the idea of joining with the rest of Christendom in worship and celebration of the Atonement and Resurrection. There’s a whole lot more we could do to participate in that.
We just finished our meeting. Talks about Jesus (of course the standard re-hash of some conference talk about the resurrection) and the choir sang a nice rendition of I know that my redeemer lives. So nothing super special.
As a 60 something that grew up in the heart of mormondom, Easter was bigger in my youth. I remember getting new clothes and the huge flower bouquets at the pulpit. It seemed larger then.
As a missionary, we attended some Holy Week services at our local Catholic Church. I was simply awe-struck at the stations of the cross and while very foreign to me, I loved it.
Sadly, a non member friend who knew several members came to our ward one Easter Sunday about 5 years ago. At the end of the meeting she said “I thought I’d come to see how the Mormons celebrate Easter. Well now I’ve found out – they don’t!” I think we sang the usual hymns and had the usual talk subjects, no mention of it being Easter Sunday. She joined another Christian church and is very involved in it.
But better news today. We sang Easter hymns (even if a bit dirge-like) and all three sacrament talks were about the Atonement. I wonder what she would have thought had that been the case 5 years ago….
I think it’s worth linking to similar posts from two years ago…
https://wheatandtares.org/2017/04/16/how-was-your-easter-service/
https://bycommonconsent.com/2017/04/16/lds-easter-service-roll-call/
Today we had a slate of youth speakers who talked about Easter and some musical numbers. Only one congregational hymn related to Easter (some people would disagree with me about the others). It might have been nice to have a grown-up talk, but at least the youth were somewhat in topic. It’s also nice that the Sunday school material includes a lesson for Easter, but if today had been priesthood/relief society we probably would have missed doing an Easter lesson? I’m not sure.
We had a sister talk about forgiveness.
She told a story of how she grew up in the Church but ended up homeless because of a less than ideal home life. Then one day she decided to return to Church. So she built up her courage. Put on her Sunday best, which consisted of blue jeans and a top with only a few holes in it and walked for one hour to get to Church. She sat in the last row coming in just before the meeting started and leaving as soon as it ended. This was her pattern for a few weeks. Then one Sunday a sister came over to her and told her that she was making the people around her uncomfortable and it would be better if she didn’t come to Church.
The fact that she was in Church and bore her testimony in spite of her experience spoke volumes about forgiveness. It also broke my heart that someone in my Church would do this to her.
I think the emphasis would have to come from the top down. I would be all for Church leadership embracing Holy Week, starting with a Palm Sunday broadcast and them nightly devotionals, each featuring two members of the Q12. Saturday could be reserved for ward or stake activities focused on Easter. Top it off with a Sunday morning broadcast from the conference center or Tabernacle. Yes, I know this will never happen.
I grew up in a LDS community in rural Arizona and I don’t remember Easter being anything special. We got candy Easter mornings is all I remember but to be fair I wouldn’t have noticed Sacrament Meeting talks anyways. Easter Sunday 13 years go after moving back home the talks were on food storage.
I think we are learning and improving as a church. All our talks today were about Easter, as were the hymns, and we had a special musical number by the Primary which was very nice. Services were nice I thought.
I think the new challenge is going to be how to treat Mother’s Day and Fathers Day. There seems to be a trend in some stakes to ignore Mothers Day at church and to dedicate talks on Fathers Day to the Priesthood.
Having just attended sacrament meeting, I will add that, in my ward at least, we could use some decorations marking the occasion. Spring flowers and perhaps white and gold table cloths would do the trick. We had a musical number and some better-than-average Easter talks. Having grown up in Arizona, where there was an annual Easter Pageant at the temple, I now realize that my perspective on Easter in the Church May have been influenced by that.
Not a Cougar,
The Tabernacle choir held a concert Friday and last night that was broadcast today. I do think that an Easter devotional and short messages throughout Holy Week would be wonderful.
We had plenty of Easter hymns but the talks were on the subject of hope and no tie to Jesus.
Our ward always does Easter well. We had several numbers by the ward choir, a viola solo by a non-member who lives in the ward boundaries, and an excellent talk on the Atonement.
The ward I was visiting had 3 talks on the atonement. No music other than opening and closing hymns. Nothing special. Not a single solitary flower anywhere. (same at my normal ward).
We could do a lot more to mark these special days. I wonder why our chapels are so drab? Why no pictures of Jesus? Little things like flower arrangements could add to the ambiance.
Lois, Some wards have members who bring flower arrangements. They don’t wait to be called by the bishop or funded by the too-small ward budget to do so. Some wards have members who will volunteer to do special music when the ward music chairman’s plans don’t otherwise work out. I wish there were more such wards and more such people in my ward — but I’m grateful we do have some.
Our sacrament was set up as a reading of the scriptural account of the last few days of Jesus life: last supper, Gethsemane, Jesus’ trial, the crucifixion and the resurrection with four musical numbers mixed in from the young women, primary, a vocal duet and a piano solo of “How Great Thou Art” as well as multiple congregational hymns. It was really nice. I have no idea if it was stake mandated, though. But I do remember Easter Sunday’s like some people describe, as well as Christmas Sunday’s when we didn’t even talk about Christmas at all. The last few years have been better for both holidays in our ward and I’m glad for that. I would love to see more recognition/celebration of all the days leading up to Easter as well. So many of my other Christian friends celebrate each specific day and I think it’s beautiful. I didn’t even know what the stations of the cross were until I was a missionary (in the states) and a little, much older French woman who was a devout catholic lived upstairs from us and had it set up in her apartment.
Nothing out of the ordinary other than 1 of the songs was “Easter” related.
We had a very excellent Sacrament meeting, with two very heart-felt talks focusing on the Savior, and how following him is a blessing. There were two well done special numbers,one by the choir, and one by a youth quartet, also focused on the Savior. It was one of the better Sacrament meetings I’ve attended recently. I came home with a very full heart, and grateful for the emphasis on Christ. I have missed the pageantry of Easter from my youth, before I was a member of the church, but I do see more effort to highlight this time of year and the Easter holiday, from the leadership of the church. I like the idea of having special flower arrangements for Easter. I’ll try to remember to arrange for those next year! Line upon line…
Our ward was kind of special. The choir did several numbers, and we had a woman who was baptized in the morning and then spoke in sacrament meeting. It was very interesting, and she made the specific request because it added to the meaning of the experience for her.
Our sacrament meeting was a family speaking, with some mention of forgiveness, but not Easter. Our SS lesson was actually about Easter. (And senior primary talked about Easter and all the kids had paper palm fronds).
Count me in the group that says mormons Easter poorly. I have sat though more than one sac mtg on Easter where Joseph Smith and the priesthood were celebrated in every talk and lesson. One year I kept checking the calendar to make sure I put baskets out on the right week.
I attended Easter Sunday in my daughter’s ward in Gilbert Az. All Easter hymns, and both talks about the Atonement, though they were from an assigned Conference talk by Elder Callister, Nothing specific about the resurrection, but baby steps!
Our new RS President said she was very disappointed about our poor Christmas program as we we were asked about “special” programs and what should we do about our Easter Program.
I suggested we involve our congregation with a number of hymns interwoven with a scriptural/a very short commentary outlining the story of Easter …and we left it at that.
On Easter Sunday we all were delighted at what happened. Our Youth did the scripture reading and commentary interspersed by hymns some 7 in all….and a primary and youth choir sang a very moving items. It was easily the best Sacrament meeting I have attended for a very long time….for me there was a number of factors that made it successful…..but basically it involved all of the congregation in a very active way….for once we just didn’t just sit there…..I think it’s a lesson here for example I think our Sacrament Meetings have the wrong emphasis …the Sacrament is not really the focus….but really the talks
Maybe we should have our opening hymn then our Sacrament hymn then the Sacrament and maybe another hymn or even two ….a short scripture reading and commentary? Very short….a choir item from the different auxiliaries over the month?…….trying to refocus on our Saviours sacrifice for us….???
My ward did not do anything particularly special. We did have the Easter hymns, and the talks seemed to reference atonement and resurrection, but for the most part it was virtually indistinguishable from any other Sunday. Most of the wards in my area did sacrament meeting only, dispensing with SS. Mine kept it. Anyway, I do recall much better Easter programs in years past, especially musically-centered programs. But I haven’t seen anything like that in over a decade. Our Christmas service was a bit disappointing too. I think we have watered down and correlated Church programs so much that we have collectively forgotten how to make things special. My bishop is, in most respects, a wonderful, hard working, self-sacrificing man. But he is quick to shoot down any idea that is not in the handbook or doesn’t come by explicit instruction from the stake president. Our ability to innovate is slowly being beaten out of us, which is sad because I know we are capable of so much better.
Perhaps we are on a path of becoming more like JWs, where we don’t really celebrate anything at all.
Our service was good. First, we passed the incredibly low bar of remembering that it was Easter. Second, we had the Primary kids sing an Easter song, followed by Easter talks from a sister and the bishop, and we ended by singing all seven verses of A Poor Wayfaring May of Grief.