April 30thWhat Now?
To my dear TFMC family,
So, what now? What’s next? It’s often a question asked after a big event. Sure, we might enjoy a little bit of an afterglow, but so quickly our attentions move on, or seek to move on to the ‘next thing. In the life of the church there are a few ‘high holy days,’ Easter and Christmas being two of them. And so much energy is put into making these celebrations special, that once they’ve passed, once people have caught their breath again, we’re ready for the next thing.
Easter, however, isn’t just a day or a Sunday on the calendar, or even a moment in time, Easter, at least as far as the church is concerned, is a whole season. And in my opinion that’s a good thing. I think it’s good for us to bask in the afterglow of Easter for a little while.
A question that I’ve wondered about in these weeks following Easter, is “so, what now?” And I’m asking that from the perspective of how does one live into this reality of Easter. What do I do with this extraordinary, miraculous, mysterious, wonderful, joyful, and totally bewildering event? How do I, with integrity and authenticity, live into this new reality? And more specifically, given what our lent series was, how do I live and cultivate the holy virtues that we explored, in a post-easter world.
In the same way that politicians are now sifting through the results and the realities of our recent federal election, I think the church needs a season to sift through the reality of a resurrected Jesus. We need to let it sink in, this incredible thing that happened.
Jesus’ resurrection is a life altering event. And while the resurrection happened in a moment, it took time for the disciples to make sense of it. It’s important to remember that Jesus stuck around for 40 days following the resurrection, and in that time, Jesus visited, met, taught and was present to the disciples in many different ways. It makes sense then, that we don’t rush ourselves away from Easter onto the next thing. It would be very appropriate for us to dwell in the mystery of Easter for a little while.
Jesus’ resurrection changed the course of history. Jesus’ resurrection changed the course of people’s lives. And it’s only good and right for us to allow ourselves to be changed too. And I don’t mean changed as in a total life shift, rather, I mean changed in the sense of being shaped, and transformed. I mean changed as, looking to live into something new, something good. And even changed in so far as trying to better follow Jesus today than yesterday.
Easter is that season when we also have to reckon with the reality that Jesus lived, Jesus was killed, he died, and Jesus was resurrected. We need to reckon with the question of what does that mean for ourselves. And if we take the time, and not move onto what’s next, we have the opportunity to ponder, wonder, and explore the question, what now? What does this mean for ourselves, and how we live?
Yours,
Craig Janzen Neufeld, Pastor