Beyond Easter
Beyond Easter
The resurrection matters today just as much as it did on Sunday
This past Sunday was Easter Sunday. We celebrated the resurrection of Jesus! We saw the love and compassion of the Father who welcomes us home and makes us new! If you were here with us as we celebrated, it was a powerful day! If you missed out… you can catch it online.
As I have gone about my week post Easter, I have found myself tired. I joked with a fellow pastor friend of mine that I felt like I had an Easter hangover! We work so hard for one service, add all types of special elements and pack our minds so full of things to remember so that the moving pieces all fall where they need to be at the right times. There are special cosmetic things like flowers, displays, photo booths. Then after an hour and a half… it is over. Everyone goes home. Monday comes and it is back to the drawing board for the next thing.
As I was talking with my friend he made a comment that got me thinking, “next Sunday won’t be the same. It won’t be Easter.” We had the best attendance we have had in a long time last Sunday. We had guests who heard a passionate presentation of the Gospel, powerful music as our praise team led us to the throne of God, and a challenge to “come home and be made new.”
The hard reality is, my friend is right. This Sunday… we won’t have near the crowd we had last week. While I always try to preach as passionately as possible, we always land on the Gospel message that hope is found in Christ, and the praise team always leads us to the throne of God… the truth is things will not be what they were last Sunday.
Now, let me be clear, I don’t think that is a bad thing. Not completely anyway. There is much danger in seeking out religious highs at the expense of the lows. The life of faith is full of peaks and valleys. It is easy to become addicted to these religious highs… so much so that we only feel connection to God when it is carefully manufactured for us. This is not a post about how we need to keep things at 100 all the time… but more about the general mindset we have concerning the resurrection.
It has long been my fear that we rely on these special days, days like Easter or Christmas, to be the whole of our religious experience. We celebrate the resurrection with passion that one day a year… only to go on about our lives come Monday as if it were something we did once. We call it Resurrection Sunday after all, that is the special day we have marked for such a celebration. One of my fears is that we forget that the power of the resurrection extends beyond Easter Sunday. Jesus is just as alive today as He was on Sunday when we filled the worship center and sang praise to our King. The loving voice of God who welcomes us home and makes us new is still as loving and compassionate today as it was then.
My challenge to you is to remember, celebrate, and live out the resurrection beyond Easter. Live out the sacrificial love of Christ in your community. Celebrate what God has done, is doing, and will continue to do in the future with each breathe. Worship Him because He is worthy of worship. Continue the daily commitment to coming home as we seek to be transformed into His image.