The Book of Common Prayer Table of contents

Easter Day

At Morning Prayer, instead of the Psalm: O come, let us, &c. these Anthems shall be sung or said.

Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
therefore let us keep the feast;
Not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness:
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 1 Cor. 5. 7.

Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more:
death hath no more dominion over him.
For in that he died, he died unto sin once:
but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin:
but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom. 6. 9.

Christ is risen from the dead:
and become the first-fruits of them that slept.
For since by man came death:
by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die:
even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 1 Cor. 15. 20.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son:
and to the Holy Ghost;
Answer. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:
world without end. Amen.

The Collect

Almighty God, who through thine only-begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life: We humbly beseech thee, that as by thy special grace preventing us thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle

Colossians 3.1-7

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: for which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: in the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.

The Gospel

St. John 20.1-10

The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalen early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together; and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre; and he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie; and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the Scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.

Text from The Book of Common Prayer, the rights in which are vested in the Crown,
is reproduced by permission of the Crown's Patentee, Cambridge University Press.