Well, based on the news reports and social media comments it appears we will be postponing our Holy Week and Easter celebrations until sometime after the pandemic has passed and it is safe for us to gather.
I mean, can one really celebrate Holy Week and Easter online? It doesn't seem right to not celebrate while seated next to each other as the large family we are.
Just maybe, the present unrest in our homes around this sacred time, gives us pause to think, to ask, "so what does it mean to celebrate Easter?"
To answer that question, I'd like to encourage you to ask yourself, "just what is Easter anyway?" Is it primarily a date on the calendar? Is it the getting dressed in new clothes? Is it singing favorite Easter hymns?
One thing for sure, Easter is not a great end to a great story worthy of an annual celebration.
It may seem like a crescendo placed near the end of each of the four gospels. But Easter is not the end of the story. It is the end of the beginning of the story. It is an inauguration into a new life. It's the sound you hear at the beginning of a race, "drivers, start your engine." (technically the Spirit of God gets the credit here.)
The empty tomb of the risen Jesus is the monumental, physical, tangible evidence that sin and death have been definitively removed so that, in the words of Greg Finke, author of "Joining Jesus on His Mission and founder of Dwelling 1:14, "we are now completely free to get up off our… pews and get on with the living and loving and redemption and restoration that the world so desperately needs.”
I mean, can one really celebrate Holy Week and Easter online? It doesn't seem right to not celebrate while seated next to each other as the large family we are.
Just maybe, the present unrest in our homes around this sacred time, gives us pause to think, to ask, "so what does it mean to celebrate Easter?"
To answer that question, I'd like to encourage you to ask yourself, "just what is Easter anyway?" Is it primarily a date on the calendar? Is it the getting dressed in new clothes? Is it singing favorite Easter hymns?
One thing for sure, Easter is not a great end to a great story worthy of an annual celebration.
It may seem like a crescendo placed near the end of each of the four gospels. But Easter is not the end of the story. It is the end of the beginning of the story. It is an inauguration into a new life. It's the sound you hear at the beginning of a race, "drivers, start your engine." (technically the Spirit of God gets the credit here.)
The empty tomb of the risen Jesus is the monumental, physical, tangible evidence that sin and death have been definitively removed so that, in the words of Greg Finke, author of "Joining Jesus on His Mission and founder of Dwelling 1:14, "we are now completely free to get up off our… pews and get on with the living and loving and redemption and restoration that the world so desperately needs.”
Lutheran Hour Ministries Daily Devotional
Bring together Good Friday, Easter and our baptism and we become the body of Christ… not symbolically but substantially. Jesus literally took our sin away from us on the cross and put His Spirit back into us through baptism. That means we are now, literally, the way through which the resurrected Jesus becomes real, physical, tangible and active to the people around us that need Him so badly.
So… Easter is more than singing rousing Alleluia's and shouts of "He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! or eating scrambled eggs together shoulder to shoulder. Rather, it is a lifestyle of blessing others.
We honor Jesus not by waiting to celebrate Easter till it’s safe, but learning to celebrate Easter every day when it’s not.
For us who gather in the liturgical Church, it is our joy to celebrate Easter every Sunday, especially on the Sundays we celebrate the Lord's Supper together receiving Him not only in heart but into our body. Why not? He Himself said.
"On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." John 14:20-21
Every Sunday we are reminded that we are freed up from sin and death for a reason! That we get to be refilled, reminded, refreshed and restored so that we can be reoriented for another week of adventuring with the Living One for the good of others!
So… Easter is more than singing rousing Alleluia's and shouts of "He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! or eating scrambled eggs together shoulder to shoulder. Rather, it is a lifestyle of blessing others.
We honor Jesus not by waiting to celebrate Easter till it’s safe, but learning to celebrate Easter every day when it’s not.
For us who gather in the liturgical Church, it is our joy to celebrate Easter every Sunday, especially on the Sundays we celebrate the Lord's Supper together receiving Him not only in heart but into our body. Why not? He Himself said.
"On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." John 14:20-21
Every Sunday we are reminded that we are freed up from sin and death for a reason! That we get to be refilled, reminded, refreshed and restored so that we can be reoriented for another week of adventuring with the Living One for the good of others!
Postpone Easter? No way! If anything, this is an opportune time to turn it up a notch. Not by adding more brass to the Easter music, or by adding more dramatic effects to the Sermon - (Think PowerPoint?)
No, whatever we do to connect around God's Word these next few weeks to worship our God, it will be celebrating His death and resurrection together as connected families.
And when we gather again in person, we will know we have been celebrating Easter all along. Jesus is already out of the tomb. He doesn't go the day after Easter to return once a year. Jesus, in the words of Greg Finke in reference to C. S. Lewis’s Narnia tales is, "on the loose in the neighborhood.” Alleluia!
It’s been Easter every day for 2000 years. Every morning, we begin by remembering our baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus, "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!” A child of the living God. Entering the new day risen with Jesus, looking for ways to help others experience His love, life, hope, truth and grace. From Him, to us, through us, to the people around us that need Him so badly.
In the Living Lord,
Pastor D.
No, whatever we do to connect around God's Word these next few weeks to worship our God, it will be celebrating His death and resurrection together as connected families.
And when we gather again in person, we will know we have been celebrating Easter all along. Jesus is already out of the tomb. He doesn't go the day after Easter to return once a year. Jesus, in the words of Greg Finke in reference to C. S. Lewis’s Narnia tales is, "on the loose in the neighborhood.” Alleluia!
It’s been Easter every day for 2000 years. Every morning, we begin by remembering our baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus, "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!” A child of the living God. Entering the new day risen with Jesus, looking for ways to help others experience His love, life, hope, truth and grace. From Him, to us, through us, to the people around us that need Him so badly.
In the Living Lord,
Pastor D.
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