40 Days: Life After Easter

Guess what?  We’re not finished yet.

We experienced the glorious redemption of Easter morning with Mary Magdalene, with the angels and the disciples who wrestled with their joyful disbelief and came running.  And it can feel sometimes as though that’s the pinnacle.  A new believer could easily come away, after the celebration winds down, and wonder, “now what?”

In the Christian faith, we build toward this wonderful point of death, burial and resurrection and I fear that we risk creating an atmosphere where that is the end vs the beginning.

Because it is – the beginning.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…the Spirit was hovering…and God said, ‘Let there be light!’

Think about life after Easter from that perspective.  ‘The Word gave life to everything that was created and his life brought light to everyone.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.’

Jesus’ resurrection was the exclamation point, the tidal wave, that boldly declared ‘Let there be LIGHT!’ and it changed the world from that point on.  There was no going back to a time when we did not know of Him.  There was no going back to a time when His sacrifice did not exist and grace was not openly held for us to grasp.

Even so, we see in the lives of the disciples, that ‘no going back’ can be messy and confusing at times.  They had to reconcile what their minds used to know as fact with the man standing in front of them.  Life after Easter has plenty of its own challenges, as any Christian can attest to experiencing – but we now are equipped, loved and surrounded in a way we never were before.

Before Easter, God teaches through one individual. After, we get to be taught directly.

Before Easter, we see intimacy between Jesus his chosen disciples.  After, we get to experience intimacy between our heart and God’s.

There are forty days, according to Luke in the book of Acts, where Jesus remained with his disciples, teaching and equipping them before He ascended into heaven.  Although the stories in the gospels vary during this time, the echo is the same – authority, instruction and relationship.

In John 21, we watch Jesus reveal Himself to the disciples who have decided to go fishing.  This always tends to feel like a playful interaction.  Peter, probably worn and still a bit disheartened, goes backward to something familiar – he goes fishing.  And what does Jesus do?  Meets him there. 

“Catch anything?”  -   hear the chuckling as he watches them?  - “Come on, bring it in!  Let’s have breakfast.”

There is so much restoration of relationship between Jesus and the disciples, Peter in particular, that we can quickly realize how important that aspect of life needs to remain.  It blooms when you read all their journeys in Acts, this sharing of relationship and community, to the extent that they begin new communities everywhere they share the good news.   We call them churches.

In the gospel of Luke, chapter 24 wraps up Jesus’ earthly ministry with the story of the men who were on a road to Emmaus when they encountered a stranger.  I’ve always wanted to know why they were headed to Emmaus, especially so soon after the resurrection.  Were the spreading the news?  Headed to meet someone? 

Once again, the disciples are prevented from recognizing Him based upon His appearance with them.  He listens to them and in the face of their lack of understanding, takes them back into scripture again.  Even so, it is when they sit and have a meal together – sharing relationship, not just instruction – that they know Him.

Mark, in chapter 16, takes a different, simpler approach.  (I’m not going to handle the dispute of where Mark ends, that can be left for a Biblical scholar or pastor to flesh out with you)  He talks about the followers headed out of Jerusalem that Jesus appeared to, but emphasizes their continued lack of belief.  We finally see Him appear to all 11 together as they were eating together.  There is a tense pairing of verses where Jesus rebukes them and then tells them to Go, and from that conversation, Jesus then ascends to heaven and sits down.  He moves from relationship with them back to His relationship with God.

Within Matthew 28, I see a desperate scramble of men to reach their friend.  They grasped for him – clearly desperate to fill the hole His death had created in their lives.  His presence, His friendship, mattered to them as well as His teachings. When they meet Jesus at the mountain near Galilee, He reaffirms His authority and then transfers it to them with clear instruction of what He needed of them next.  His comforting assurance in verse 20 hits me most of all, because it could easily have been left off.  It doesn’t connecting with spreading the good news – but it connects with who Jesus IS.

…and be sure of this: I am with you always…

Those sound like the words of a friend.  A friend who knows they will ache, they will feel loss, maybe grief.  These men were not a means to an end.  They were chosen purposely to have relationship with Him, to learn from Him and bear witness.  They were chosen to see Him in spirit and truth, to worship Him, and to learn to love as He loved. 

What next?   Well, where are you in your God story?  Is God moving toward you, like Peter, seeking to restore relationship?  Are you stuck, like they were in Acts after Jesus ascended, and angels are being sent with the exasperated question of ‘why are you standing here?’  Or maybe you’ve been swirling in the dirt on the road, full of wonder but lacking the intimacy?

Wherever you find yourself at this point, guess what?  We’re not finished yet.  So, walk boldly into life after Easter.

Listen: 'Jesus: Spoken Word" by Davy Flowers