Easter is a holiday of paradoxes. On this day—this whole week, really—we find a time for seriousness and celebration, for joy and for solemnity. For reflection, and for merrymaking.
Those around us who do not believe in, or do not care about, Jesus’ sacrifice for us, see this weekend as a time to load up on candy, or perhaps enjoy a day off work. They shake their heads in wonder about how Easter moves around every year. They may buy a new outfit for spring or dust off the white shoes for summer. And they probably wonder why churches make such a fuss over one little Sunday out of the year.
In all fairness, some Christians wonder that, too. I do not belong to a high church. We acknowledge Easter by having an egg hunt for the children, and the little ones get a special Resurrection lesson. Otherwise, it’s worship as usual. :)
And to some extent, worship as usual is a good thing! I don’t look at this one season as the time to especially focus on Jesus’ redeeming work, because that is an ongoing process all the time. We should celebrate Jesus every Sunday. There is no need to skimp on our praise and adoration the other 51 weeks of the year. For the Christian, one’s whole life is a celebration, a (perhaps) decades-long tribute to the One who died so that we may live. There is no need to save up all that joy and adoration for one Sunday a year.
So, for my Easter Sunday, I sang songs of praise with joy in my heart. I reflected on what Jesus did as I participated in the Lord’s Supper. I watched others worship and thought about how blessed I am to have such a church family.
You know. Worship as usual.
3 comments:
My husband and I agreed that we appreciated that our church's service was a bit more than normal, but not over the top. It was close to what you'd expect to see on any given Sunday. But there was also a little extra. Kinda hard to explain.
Like it didn't give visitor's a wrong impression of what our church is, but it did emphasize that we were commemorating an amazing historical and spiritual event.
And I think that's cool. Don't worry-- more to follow tomorrow. I just couldn't fit all my thoughts in one post. :)
I look forward to the thoughts to come :)
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