by Meg Jenista

You’ve raided the children’s candy stash, the marshmallow peeps are hardening in the back corner of your pantry for another year and Easter morning is behind us.

But, like those tiny green ribbons of Easter basket grass caught in the carpeting, Eastertide will be with us for a long time to come–50 days, in fact.

After a season of penitence and preparation, the church knew that one feast day of celebration wasn’t going to cut it. They gave us a whole season! Then they supplemented the Jewish practice of Saturday Sabbath with a decidedly Christian practice of Sunday celebration. The Jewish Saturday Sabbath commemorates the 7th day of creation on which God rested. It is a day given to us for rest and the enjoyment of creation. The Christian “Lord’s Day” commemorates the 8th day of creation. A day given to us for the celebration of Jesus own death and resurrection. A celebration of the inauguration of a new Kingdom, a new creation, a new life. The early church gifted us not just with a day, not just with a season but also a weekly memorial. “Each Sunday is a little Easter.”

So maybe we aren’t quite done with the candy or the Alleluias or the joyous greeting, “Christ is risen!” just yet.

As long as there is life, it demands to be celebrated.
Each Sunday is a gift given us–the chance to start again fresh on the first day of the week.
A gift given us–the chance to align our lives today with that Great Tomorrow.
A day set apart to celebrate life.
A day set apart to anticipate a Kingdom of justice, love, and peace when Christ returns.
A day set apart to honor and practice resurrection.

On Sunday we gather to hear it proclaimed, “Christ is risen.”
So that, when the news reports the beheading of Egyptian Christians,
Our voices may join in their confession of faith, “He is risen, indeed!”

When 147 students are slain in Kenya,
We might have a word
–not an easy answer or a quick fix–
But a way to grieve and lament and summon God to act on behalf of his promise…
“But Christ is risen!”

On Sunday we gather to hear it proclaimed, “Christ is risen.”
So that,
when our bodies betray us,
our hearts condemn us,
our minds fail us,
when the grief rises strong,
when the doubts denounce us,
when addiction tempts us,
when we are thoroughly flummoxed by life itself,

There is yet this. We may call it to mind and therefore we have hope. “He is risen, indeed.”

Meg Jenista is the pastor of DC Christian Reformed Church in Washington, DC.