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So much good work and care went into the season of Lent and the celebrations of Easter! Thanks to choir, musicians, cleaners, flower arrangers, readers, passion players, egg stuffers, pancake makers, kitchen cleaners,
brass polishers, bulletin preparers, and so many more!
Even in the afterglow I have to admit, on this other side of Lent and the Three Days, it is difficult to keep the enthusiasm of Easter going! Just thinking about the 49 days in the Easter Season plus the Day of Pentecost that are ahead of us (the week of weeks) make me wonder how the energy will keep flowing.
But, maybe these Easter celebrations are a bit like falling in love. The fireworks and excitement of new love inevitably give way to a different way of being together. After all of the hoopla, we find ourselves finding new patterns together, discovering new wonders about the other, but also settling in a bit to routine and even to a bit of boredom!
Even so, if the initial energy and passion has faded a bit, what follows is still important.
This season of Easter is a time to continue to unpack what love can do and dare. We continue each of these Sundays to hear of the unleashed work of the early church in the Book of Acts. Women and men that had fallen in love with the new possibilities of a God who is making all things new, now struggling to live faithfully and creatively into the future together. We hear of success, but we also hear of fear and heartache, divisions, and conflict. We will hear gospel stories of experiences with a post-resurrection Jesus: One who continually comes into our fear and even boredom to offer a word of peace and the new breath of the Spirit.
In light of this, maybe this Easter Season isn’t about trying to keep up the energy and pizazz of the Three Days and Easter Sunday. It may be much more about learning to live into the future together, lovers all, trying to unpack and more deeply explore what resurrection and new life could mean for us.
Easter is, after all, a journey of a lifetime.
--Douglas