The Colors of Easter

The Colors of Easter

Easter Colors Chart

Fun, Instructional activity to discover and create symbolism in colors at Easter

There's really no Biblical foundation for most of the colors of Easter, except perhaps purple, which is Biblically the color of royalty or specialty....

Most all of the origins for the colors of Easter are either developed from feelings, or general color associations. There is no "official ruling" on the colors.

This means you can create your own Easter color table.

I have compiled a chart with the colors commonly seen at Easter from beads, crosses - even jelly beans, and other sources accessible on the web. The chart also includes the meanings of their colors. In several cases I have included the sources.

Since there is no official authority on Easter colors, your plan is as good as anyone else's if you consider the event or situation and colors that are reasonably appropriate.

Study the chart and either complete the final column on the Easter Colors Chart, or if you need more space use the Large Color Plan. It's a really unusual way to review the events of Holy Week and easter.

About Bible colors:
Biblically we have blue, scarlet and purple in the tabernacle in Exodus. Purple and scarlet come up again in Revelations. In the New Testament, Lydia is a merchant of purple cloth. In John 19 we have, "And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and arrayed him in a purple robe..' The book of Mark has a purple cloak in the Easter Story. We have the Red Sea.In Matthew 27 they say they put a "scarlet robe on him".

One source on our chart shows yellow, pink and orange for an Easter morning sky. I suggest you omit those colors for that reasoning .If you check the reference to Jesus' "red sky in the morning", in the book of Matthew (ch 16), a pinky, orange, yellow, red sky in the morning is a not good sign.So probably not a good idea to use that color reference. But maybe you can associate pink with something else- like if you are "in the pink" you feel good. Certainly on Easter there is reason for feeling good. (RSV)

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No special preparation

Get a copy of the Easter Colors Chart.

Study the chart. See what others say about a certain color and decide what you think the color means for easter.

Reading across each color line, you can see what other people have associated with that color.

In the last column to the right, you can write in the meaning for the color everyone in your class agrees upon.

If there is not enough room for you to write it out, get a copy of the Large Color Plan and complete that one. Color in the ovals with the actual colors.

TWO Ideas for when you are done:

1. Retell the story using only colors as a kind of "code". See who can tell the Easter story by colors alone- from memory. Sequence the colors. Such as if you use green for Palms and maroon for wine, you story might be "green, maroon..... " (without any other words.) Everyone's' story is dependent on the colors the class finally decides on. This can be fun, but it is not necessarily easy.

2. Get our Easter Colors bracelet and color it with your Easter colors. After you are done with the bracelet, see if anyone can tell the story by going through the meaning of all the colors in the bracelet.(You can duplicate colors if you are not using all the colors available.)