Happy Easter!

#BringingSundayintoMonday – Easter Sunday Edition!

I saw a silly meme on Facebook a few weeks back:

It made me laugh in the midst of an indeed difficult Lenten season. Thankfully, Lent is over. Our situation may not be, but it does feel like there’s at least light at the end of the tunnel.

I’m thankful for the liturgical seasons. I know that might sound boring to most, but hear me out. The church seasons help us mark time that is not constrained to our culture’s sense of time. Rather, the seasons help us mark our worship’s sense of time. It helps us to emotionally and spiritually engage. Advent is a season of expectation. Lent is a season of lament and fasting. Ordinary time is a season to remember that God is also at play in the mundane. And Easter, well, Easter is a season of resurrection. Our celebration and remembrance of Jesus’s resurrection is not limited to one day a year. We observe it for a season.

And here’s what I really like about the Easter season: it’s 50 days long. It comes after Lent – even the Lentiest Lent we’ve ever Lented – which is 40 days long. While the season of Lent has its place and importance, the liturgical calendar reminds us that resurrection wins over lament; that life defeated death; that joy comes in the morning. And while we can’t quantify that, the ten extra days in Easter reminds us of this reality.

So, for the next 50 days: Happy Easter! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

And, for the rest of eternity:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:54-57)

Christ’s resurrection swallowed up death in victory.

Happy Easter!

(Read 1 Corinthians 15 sometime this Easter season. It has the most comprehensive articulation of Christ’s resurrection on us in Scripture. It is certainly a chapter to read, study, and meditate on this season!)

Go check out the recorded Easter service: