ChurchLife 1: The Post-Easter Awakening
In case you missed it, Easter is over. The ham has been eaten, the candy is now 50% off at many fine retailers, and churches are empty-ish again. He rose again (again), and everything’s back to normal.
It was a crazy Easter season at Indian River, which isn’t unusual. Our annual Easter Egg fund-raiser — a month-long process of preparing and selling delicious chocolate Easter Eggs — was successful, but not without a few hiccups along the way. (I’ll try to post some pictures soon.) In the end, we raised enough money to send every student to a summer camp at a drastically reduced rate. Fund-raising can be a contentious topic in some old-school churches, but validation comes from more students at life-changing camps. Good enough for me.
Then there was Easter Sunday. Pastor preached the lights out as we froze our butts off at Sunrise (metal folding chairs and sub-50’s temps are not a friendly combination). Big Church was good, too, and our sanctuary was full-up with members and families and visitors.
Then we all went home.
Now what?
The Easter-and-Christmas cycle boggles me. Churches fill up, hear the greatest truth ever told, then go into a bomb shelter until the next church to-do (Mother’s Day, perhaps). This isn’t exactly a new problem: Jesus himself had to get the disciples out from their locked room a week after the resurrection. Scared the crap out of them, too.
What’s scarier: Facing Jesus at church, or at home?
Locked doors don’t matter much.
I’m rambling.
What if we actually let Jesus change us? What if we were healed? What if he breathed on us? What if we refused to be frail?
My Pastor said something awesome as the sun broke over the trees. ”Are you looking for the dead Jesus of Friday, or the resurrected Jesus of Sunday?”
Are you looking for life?
I want to live.
Still rambling.
Tyler
