Taking the Time
Devotional April 10: Why we need to appreciate all 50 days of Easter, and use this time to continue to grow and develop our understanding of the resurrection.
Devotion
Did you know that Easter is 50 days?
That’s right 50 whole days. Taking us from the day we celebrate Christ’s resurrection, and taking us to the day before Pentecost (this year celebrated on May 19). However, I think we often forget that like Christmas, Easter is more than one day (remember the 12 Days of Christmas?).
Even more so, it is not as much forgetting that these holy times are seasons and not single days, but it is also recognizing how we can grow during these seasons when we treat them as such.
It is interesting when we consider that the major holy days we celebrate (Christmas and Easter), are actually a part of longer seasons. As I ponder one this, and the developing theology that led to this liturgical calendar, it reminds me that early Christians treated these celebrations as a time where they focused on how they were growing and maturing as Christian disciples.
Through Lent, we encounter our mortality (hence why we start with the ashen cross of Ash Wednesday). Then, through Easter we encounter resurrection and new life, both calling us to encounter how we live into and express these in our faith journey and life in the world.
When we treat Easter like the season we name it to be in our liturgical calendar, we encounter, not just Christ’s resurrection, but the nature, promise, and hope of our own. What does this mean for us?
Resurrection is naming that death cannot hurt us. It is not that we are “unafraid” of death, but that when things covered with pain, evil, and even death encounter us, the fear of the unknown is journeyed with God amongst us. Carrying this hope of resurrection means that we have seen the life and example of our Savior. We have seen the promise God gave us through Jesus’ resurrection, and we claim that through faith the same promise is extended to us.
In death there is resurrection, and in the presence of that which is death God promises to journey along with us.
This Easter season, we seek to be reminded of and to fully claim that resurrection nature. We seek to be people whose lives are transformed by resurrection, knowing that it is God’s love and promise that offers the transformation. No longer do we feel bound by the things that cause death, but we yearn after God’s abiding love.
All 50 of these days are callings to recognize, grow, and be transformed in this nature as we continue on the path of sanctification in God’s grace.
Reflection
How does the message of the resurrection stir in you God’s commitment to journey alongside us?
What else are you doing in these 50 days of Easter to encounter the resurrected Christ, and grow in his image?
Prayer
Heavenly God, it is in your promise of the resurrection that we find, not only life, but comfort. We are comforted by your presence. We know that it is through your presence with us that we can truly live in the comfort of your grace. We see you in the good times and the bad, knowing that no matter what confronts us that your message of resurrection and promise abide with us. Help us find the healing in this comfort and find resurrection in the death that is happening around and within us. AMEN!!!