Pastor's Blog: Becoming Easter People
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Growing in our understanding of Easter faith is a challenge we Christians face every post-Resurrection Sunday. Because we put so much emphasis on that particular day and those leading up to it (as well we should), we tend to breathe a sigh of relief when Easter Sunday is over, grateful that we accomplished all the tasks that go along with such a signal celebration. What we too often fail to keep in mind, however, is that Easter is much more than a single day on the calendar; it is instead a way to live our faith throughout the year, especially in those seasons where we experience significant headaches and heartaches.
That’s why our Easter growth is undeniably more important now than ever. Each day we are confronted with more evidence of the serious nature of this present COVID–19 pandemic, and the numbers of new cases and tragic deaths threaten to rob us of the Resurrection joy we just celebrated this past Sunday. If we’re not careful, our “Hallelujahs” can sink into “Same old, Same old” and we find that Easter’s warm glow has chilled precipitously, in spite of the warmer springtime weather outside. What we need is some guidance on how we might sustain our Easter joy and nurture our Resurrection hope.
My suggestion is that we give prolonged attention to the First Epistle of Peter. Attributed to the most mercurial of Jesus’ disciples, First Peter represents an orientation manual for new believers into what Easter faith looks like in everyday experience, particularly that experience which involves trial and tribulation. So, for the remainder of the spring we’ll organize our worship around the words Peter passed on to those whom the Holy Spirit entrusted to his care. Given how Peter himself wrestled with maintaining the spiritual consistency Jesus had called him to show, his words offer guidance and inspiration as they draw deeply from a reservoir of grace that represent both pardon and power.
You’ll remember how in the last chapter of John’s Gospel, as the Risen Jesus appears to his disciples by the Sea of Galilee, he singles out Peter for a special assignment. “Feed my sheep,” the Risen Jesus tells him three times, a not so subtle reminder of how Peter had betrayed Jesus in similar fashion in the hours before his death. It was Jesus’ way of raising Peter from the low place his spirit had no doubt fallen and appointing him to help others know the same sense of resurrection in their everyday life.
My hope is that by working through this letter we will become more equipped to weather this current crisis, and all that may come after it. After all, if the Resurrection of Jesus changed everything on that first Easter morning, there’s no reason why it can’t continue to change us and make us more of the people whose hopeful and joyful witness is the best evidence of all for why Easter ultimately matters and why it matters henceforth and forevermore.
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).