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This weekend, we are taking time to celebrate one of the biggest Sundays throughout the year.

I am talking about Easter Sunday. In the traditional denominations, it is one of the high holy days of the year, and it is the culmination of the journey through Lent and Holy Week to get to the celebration of Jesus being resurrected from the grave. In these churches, one might even intentionally not use the words “hallelujah” and “alleluia” during the Lent season as it is a time of reflection. Those words are saved for Easter when the contemplative journey is complete as they focus on the journey they took from Ash Wednesday to the cross on Good Friday.

Other churches will call it Resurrection Sunday. Either one is fine for me. While it has never been as commercialized as Christmas, Easter is probably the most important of the holidays, in my opinion, within the Christian church.

Typically, it is the Sunday in which people are encouraged to dress up a little more. Men who might only wear khakis and a polo might step it up and wear a suit with a tie. Many women might even wear a decorative hat with their ensemble for this festive day.

Also, churches will do special services. Some of them might be having a sunrise service. Others might have a cantata. Some churches will even do a major Easter production. One online service I noticed this week had an actor portraying Jesus riding a colt into the sanctuary for Palm Sunday. I can’t imagine what they will do for Easter.

My cousin, Garry, is a music pastor in Ohio. He has always put on a big production at his church each Easter. They will do performances all throughout the Easter weekend, including one final one on Easter Sunday night.

I recently visited with him, and he said he always loved doing Easter programs because of the music he gets to use. During Christmas, carols aren’t always songs that can be sung during worship during the rest of the year while Easter cantata songs could be sung most Sundays.

I get that. When you think about it, typically, the only Christmas song I can remember being sung outside of the Advent season has been the chorus to “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

But most Easter cantata songs could be appropriate throughout the rest of the year. The fact that Christian churches worship on Sunday is a nod to the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead on that Sunday morning.

Speaking of an Easter cantata, my home church used to have Easter cantatas almost every year. The climax would usually be with the song “Then Came The Morning.” When the big chorus hit, Jesus would emerge from our paper mâché tomb. In our rendition, an angel didn’t release him. He kicked down the door-shaped rock and emerged from the tomb filled with dry ice fog.

In some ways, it’s a really cool way to think of Jesus kicking down the door to come into our hearts. And he will do that as long as we are willing.

Happy Easter!

Brent Maze is the publisher of The Selma Times-Journal. He can be reached at brent.maze@selmatimesjournal.com.