Skip to main content

Easter Sunday!

            Yesterday was the most holy day of the holiest week of the year.  It is so important to experience Easter each year.  Every Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection, but Easter Sunday is the day we take it all in on a deeper level. 

            Now that it has been experienced for this year, it is time to integrate the joy of Easter Sunday into every day that I live.  What does it mean today that Easter Sunday really happened over 2000 years ago?  How does the resurrection of Jesus Christ affect how I live today, and for the coming year? 

            There remains a lot that doesn’t make sense to me about God, His love for this world and mankind.  I don’t fully understand how it is all going to work out in the end.  Easter Sunday gives me a preview.  It shows me that God is up to something wonderful.  He has proven there is a way to fix what is so wrong with this world.  Easter Sunday shows me that everything will happen when I least expect it to happen.  It fills me with expectation and awe.  I don’t have all the answers, but I know there are answers. 

            Paul said it this way to the Corinthians:  Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 1 Corinthians 15:1, 3-4 

            We Christians take our stand on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is the entire focus of Easter Sunday.  It is Christ’s resurrection that assures me of hope.  I don’t have to see how everything will work out because I can see how Christ has worked out.  I can be assured that Christ finished His hard work in this world.  It motivates me to focus on my own hard work.  I don’t have to like the work He has given me to do, but I do need to value it.  If it was important for Christ to come to this earth and do His work, then it is important for me to live like Him.

            If we are thrilled by Easter Sunday so we can be thrilled by cloudy Monday mornings.  Underneath the chores that have to be done, the sad news I will be forced to digest, the rotten smells that are part of living in this world, there is hope in the resurrection.  Christ has risen to heaven.  He leads the way.  He didn’t just live again in His former way contained by flesh like Lazarus and the others who were resurrected from the dead.  He was the first to rise again into the glory of the full resurrection.   We await that resurrection for ourselves and in the meantime we live this life in the hope of glory.

            The day after Easter Sunday is a day to get on with the gift of living.  It is a day to find the highest meaning and intention in the life God has purposed for us on this earth.

Copyright © 2014.  Deborah R. Newman  teatimeforyoursoul.com  All Rights Reserved.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Moving Forward

It’s been half a decade since my husband of 27.5 years died suddenly of a brain bleed.  My life turned upside down that weekend, and nothing will ever be the same.  Someone commented to me that I had moved-on.  It was meant to be a compliment, and I totally get the affirmation that was intended.  The truth is I have not moved-on, nor do I ever expect that I will.  I love this quote sent to me in a sympathy card and have shared it over and over with others.  St Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: I can never lose one whom I have loved unto the end; one to whom my soul cleaves so firmly that it can never be separated does not go away but only goes before.               Grief should have a beginning, middle and end; that is true.  That first year or two I would have done anything to diminish my pain.  I was in so much pain that I wasn’t even a person.  It’s hard to believe that we humans will naturally grow more comfortable existing in our pit of despair of grief than to let it go…
Post a Comment
Read more

Thank You Dad

Recently I have been contemplating why it is ingrained in me that I must be quiet and respectful and look at the flag when the national anthem is played.  It’s as natural for me as standing for the Hallelujah Chorus during Handel’s Messiah or for the Bride when she walks through the back door.  Like a Pavlov dog, my instincts go into action, and I do not even think about my somewhat conditioned response. Why?  It was definitely my own father who had the most influence over me regarding the national anthem.  I am not a sports enthusiast.  However, from a young age I found myself at sports games because my older brother played every sport offered.  Our family faithfully attended those games, which normally started with the national anthem.  I found a way to enjoy the otherwise agonizing experience of being held prisoner to my brother’s sporting events by gravitating to my friends who were there under duress as well.  We made up games of our own; we would laugh and talk throughout the q…
Post a Comment
Read more

Traveling Through

I am writing this week’s Tea Time devotion from the airport in Houston, Texas.  When I set out my travel plans months earlier, I never expected to use the Houston International airport at all.  I’ve been here two times in the last three days, and the last time it was for about six hours due to weather at my destination!  In fact, for the last four days I have been traveling back and forth from two different Central American countries, and only one of my four days of flying proceeded as planned.  I’ve had a lot of time to ponder airline practices; and I can come up with a multitude of suggestions for what they could do better, but that is not my job.  The long, strenuous, and unexpected travel has driven home the instructions Peter gives to Christians in his two letters:But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;for it is written: Be holy, because I am holy. (1 Peter 1:15-16) So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every ef…
Post a Comment
Read more