Jesus Is Risen, Now What?

-

As I write this, it is the Monday after Easter.  I've drunk about four cups of coffee, and none of them seem to have taken.  I'm groggy, tired, wrung out and generally feeling kind of less than my best. 

 I am having to resist the urge to go somewhere and eat pancakes... lots of pancakes. 

 For those of us who serve as pastors or church staffers, the Monday after Easter is a tough day.  All of the effort, planning and the energy that was spent preparing and then facilitating Easter worship services ends abruptly and then you start realizing how tired you are. 

 I got to thinking today about Jesus' disciples and how they must have felt on the Monday after Easter.  I imagine that they were all pretty stunned and exhausted from all that happened that weekend.

 The Gospel accounts don't really give us a timeline to the post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus to his followers.  But I think that the Monday after Easter was a day when the disciples sat around groggy, tired, wrung out and wondering what to do next. 

 I'm probably thinking about all of this because I'm about to preach a new sermon series where one of the driving questions is simply this:  "Jesus is risen, now what?"  What do we do after Easter?  How do we live into the hope of the Resurrection? 

 I think it begins when we first desire to live differently than before. 

 It's when we make the decision that all of the feels we felt when we gathered together with other people to worship and praise on Easter Sunday is something that we want to keep going. 

 It's when we choose to move forward from the grief or bitterness or anger that has kept us paralyzed and unable to take a step into the future. 

 It's when we finally realize that God is at work all around us and that there are so many things that we can choose to join God doing in order to embody the kingdom of God right here and now. 

 Author Joan Chittister puts it like this: 
The very impulse to choose the best over the comfortable or the secure is a sign that the resurrection has begun in us. 
May you find the energy and courage to choose the best over the comfortable today and every day.  May you discover the risen Christ in countless moments and in all of Creation.  May you begin to live a Resurrection life, full of hope and immeasurable joy. 

 And may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for leaving a comment! If you comment Anonymously, your comment will summarily be deleted.

Popular posts from this blog

Rapha & Yada - "Be Still & Know": Reimagined

-
Image
One of the most well-used verses in the Bible comes to us from Psalm 46:10, which reads like this:  He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;     I will be exalted among the nations,     I will be exalted in the earth.” That one line---"Be still, and know that I am God"---finds its way into greeting cards, wall art, church signs and the like.  And it sounds so nice, doesn't it?  But what does it actually mean ? What does it mean to be still  and know  that God is God?  Well, to dig deeper into that phrase to see what it's really saying, I'm going to have to bust out some Hebrew--so, don't hold it against me. The Hebrew word that's used here for the phrase "be still" is the word  rapha. And get this... It means "to hang limp, sink down, be feeble."  That's a heckuva lot different than what we usually take the phrase "be still" to mean, right? I don't know about you, but whenever I have heard that verse
Read more

Wuv... True Wuv...

-
Image
Go ahead. Ask me what my favorite "chick flick" is. The Princess Bride , that's what.  The pic at the top of this entry gave it away, I know. There are three reasons why it is my favorite "chick flick." 1. It's not a chick flick.  2. The only kissing is at the end of the movie... where it's supposed to be. 3. It has Andre the Giant in it. Any of these reasons could stand alone in their own right as pretty dang valid reasons why The Princess Bride is atop my list of romantic films.  But when the aforementioned reasons are lumped together, I don't see how anyone could argue against it. There is a scene in The Princess Bride that makes me giggle a whole lot...the wedding scene where Peter Cook, playing a priest with a speech impediment presides over Princess Buttercup's almost wedding to the evil Chris Sarandon (and I hear he's still pretty evil).   Here it is. Wuv...  true wuv...  gotta love that. I've been reading and re-re
Read more

The Lord Needs It: Lessons From A Donkey

-
Image
This Sunday is Palm Sunday---the beginning of Holy Week. It's also one of those Sundays when you can't ignore the church calendar and just preach whatever you want.  I am sure that some people do just that, but they probably aren't Presbyterian, and I am sure that the liturgical rhythm of the Church is not first and foremost in their mind. And they probably have had no trouble at all working on their sermon this week. I'm not one to blindly follow tradition, but there are some things that you just don't do---and you can't just ignore  the story of Jesus' Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.   But this leads to a bit of a quandary...  In the short time I have been doing this whole preaching thing I have gone through the Palm Sunday story a few times.  After a while you sort of wonder if your congregation has heard your Palm Sunday riff a few too many times. That sermon needs to get preached, though.  While we celebrate the cheers and pal
Read more