For many the events of April 9th are long gone; Easter is done and over. The excitement has come to pass, and we’ve moved on to another season. Yet, in this light, we tend to forget an important piece of Scripture. Acts 1:3 says, “After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God” (NRSVUE). The celebration of Jesus’ resurrection lasted for forty days after the experience of that blessed morning. For forty more days Jesus walked the earth talking about the kingdom of God. For forty more days the disciples got to learn from Jesus, spend time with him, and celebrate the great thing God had done in the resurrection.
That is why for the Christian church, we find ourselves in the season of Easter. It is a period of forty days following Easter Sunday in which we get to continue celebrating. During this season we get to continue walking with Jesus and listen to him speak about the Kingdom of God. During this season we get to continue celebrating that Jesus is alive and will be with us forever more.
Yet, that also makes me consider – does Easter end just because the church calendar says we come to the end of a season? Certainly not! For we are Easter people! We are the people of the Resurrection. We get to celebrate resurrection every single day of our lives because Jesus is alive and has promised to always be with us (see Matthew 28:20).
Easter isn’t about a single day, but about every day we spend with Jesus. It’s about the fact that “…God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-7, NRSVUE).
So, I suppose the thing to ponder today is – how can you celebrate this life? How can you display the provision of the resurrection? How can we be the Easter people we are, even when the calendar has moved on to something else?
Always pondering, Pastor Steve
