It is Easter, the longest season of celebration in the Christian calendar. If you grew up evangelical, like I did, you probably did not live in a world where we remember the Resurrection for more than a single Sunday. Yesterday, you probably dressed up in pastels, or at least saw others who did. However, next Sunday will be just another day at church. Most likely you will not go as attendance tends to drop significantly. As a minister, we joke about how the Sunday after Easter is “Associate Minister Sunday;” the senior minister gives up their pulpit to recuperate after a busy week and someone else will shoulder the burden or preaching. This is part of the informal flow of life in church that we are all used to.
It takes a lot of energy to prepare all the services.
Our reserves are taxed after writing the “BIG” sermon.
While we may not lie to admit that church does not seem as attractive the week after a big holiday, we must admit that this is the truth. When all the flowers are gone, the choir is missing many of its best singers, and the experienced, charismatic preacher is not in the pulpit, people recognize that Sunday morning is not going to be the show it was last week. There will not be as much pageantry, nor will sanctuary look as colorful.
But it is still Easter.
Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed.
Over the past few weeks, I have written a lot about guns in American society. If you have been reading, I am sure that you noticed. What you may not have thought during all of that was there was very little difference between what I was writing and what you could read in the news. That is the struggle for many of my friends as we try to minister. Our thoughts are not all that different from those around us, and in fact we are not doing much more than participating in social punditry.
What is the point, then?
I would like to tell you a story of a friend of mine. I will do my best to keep the details foggy to protect the anonymity of those involved while getting to my point.
My friend was in seminary, and his tradition held a conference every year that gathered students together with experienced clergy to pass on some tips for preaching. As part of the planning, the students were gathered into groups with students from other seminaries and one experienced clergyperson. My friend found themselves lucky enough to be in a group led by one of the most well-known and revered preachers of their particular tradition. During the first group session, one of the students delivered their prepared sermon as part of the group learning plan. My friend told me this student’s sermon was amazing, filled with incredible scholarly historical and theological research about the roles of women in the life of the Church. My friend was quite jealous of this students sermon and their delivery as the group took in the presentation.
When the student was done, there was time for the group to ask questions and offer constructive critique. After the students had put together a smattering of questions and critique, the minister/leader spoke up. “I have a question. What’s the point?”
The entire room fell silent, with a silent gasp coming from the rest of the students. “I mean, you obviously did a lot of research and preparation for this sermon, but there wasn’t anything in there I couldn’t have read in US News and World Report or the New York Times. Where’s the Gospel?”
My friend described how the students in the room began to rise to the defense of their peer. They pointed out passages in Scripture that spoke to the sermon’s goal, and quoted from documents in their tradition that supported the positions of the preacher. This famed preacher who many in the room had seen as a hero waited on them to finish before saying, “Exactly. All of that should have been in the sermon. Remember that when we are supposed to speak, we are supposed to speak from heart of God.”
“Where’s the Gospel?”
It is still Easter. Easter is so much more than just a time of remembrance. Jesus asks more of us that to dress up and arrive at church on time to be seen as having shown up for the resurrection. In this moment, we are called to a greater allegiance than just showing up; a deeper realignment of our future than just appreciation. Jesus was not so easy to follow, nor so easy to ignore. Instead, the events of Easter, from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, call us into new life. They call us to new action.
In a world that worships violence, Easter calls us to peace. On Good Friday, we see that in the words of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when he looks at Peter. The disciple who has a big role to play in this weekend had just cut off the guard’s ear when his teacher tells him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”
We are told in 1 John that we are to bring this peace through love. The Apostle says:
“ We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death. All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them. We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”
- 1 John 3: 14-17
Easter is usually full of pageantry. The music is the best we can offer, the sermons the deepest of the year, and the vestments have all been newly washed. But none of this is meant to be merely a spectacle to observe. Our Gospel is one that calls us forward to New Life, and to tell the world that it doesn’t have to be like this.
If only we believed.
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