The Rest of The Story

Monday morning after Easter. Many will look back at yesterday and celebrate a wonderful time at church coupled with quality time spent with chocolate bunnies and other confections of the season. There may have been some who had a profound spiritual experience yesterday which took Easter well beyond that nasty plastic grass, and a dinner fit to feed a neighborhood. In my time I have had opportunity to celebrate Easter 34 times, and over the last few years I have begun to wonder more about the Monday after.

Celebrations of resurrection are wonderful, and often is the church at its best. Many people come out to church, possibly the only time all year, to do what a good citizen would do. Even the hardiest church attender who has not missed a day of church since the Nixon administration attends and comments how lovely the church was and how nice it was to see the church so full of people. To the pastor who could mistakenly think all the people are there to see them. All the people gathered run the risk of missing the point. So you might ask what is the point?

The point of the whole thing is not Easter Sunday. The real point is found in the Monday after. Resurrection is not true only on this one day of the year. Further we are called by Christ to live as resurrection people everyday of our lives. Yet all too often we have a wonderful day celebrating Easter but when Monday morning comes around the option is there to return to a pre-resurrection life, or even worse life as usual. The resurrection of Jesus was offered by God to all humanity to so that everything would be changed.

So the real question is not how was your Easter. The real question is how is the rest of the story going to be written. I am not suggesting that we all know how the rest of our lives are going to be played out. I am suggesting we can know because of the story God has written through Jesus Christ, our story will be forever different. Will the story after resurrection Sunday look the same as before? I hope and pray that it will not. May God mess with our lives. May we be people of live and hope rather than gloom and death. May resurrection be the core of our beings not just once a year, but every moment of every day.