The Monday After Easter

Stephen Nichols shares some excellent thoughts on The Day After Easter. Here's a brief quote: Easter is over. The new clothes are hung up, the candy has been eaten, and choir directors and pastors everywhere--not to mention ushers--are enjoying the quiet routines of a Monday. For the diehard Reformed, you know who you are, this Monday is like every other Monday because Easter Sunday is like every other Sunday: Resurrection Sunday comes every seven days for you, not once a year.

For the rest of us, I have some thoughts. It was after Christ rose from the dead that the work of the church, of beginning and building the church, began in earnest. The euphoria of the Resurrection moment would abate and the grind of routine would set in. The hard work, the daily commitment to love and care for people, the challenge of a hostile world crushing in, all this and more was what the early church, the New Testament church, had to look forward to. ...Being faithful in the routines, on the Mondays after the Sundays, is important. It is as inversely important as it seems unglamorous. (Emphasis mine.)

How very true. We continue on faithfully in our day to day work of bringing in the Kingdom. Focusing not on ourselves and the post-holiday let down we feel but rather on the glory of Christ and what He has done in our lives. Dig into Scripture today as you always do and get working while remembering to pray, meditate and thank the Lord for the trials you encounter (Psalm 119:71).

Luther Sermon on Easter from Mark 16:1-8

In the Gospel of John Christ tells Mary Magdalene of the benefit and use of his death and resurrection still more plainly, when he says: "But go unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God." Jn 20,17. This is one of the great and comforting passages upon which we can venture, and of which we dare boast. As if Christ had said: Go hence, Mary, and say to my disciples who have deserted me on the field of battle, and who have well merited punishment and eternal condemnation, that my resurrection has taken place for their benefit; that is, by my resurrection I have brought it to pass that my Father is their Father, and my God is their God. These are few words and very short; but they contain a great thought, namely, that we have as great a confidence and refuge in God as Christ his Son himself has. Who can grasp such exceeding joy, unless one speaks of himself when he says a poor, corrupt sinner can and may call God his Father and his God, just like Christ himself does? A portion of a sermon by Martin Luther in 1525 ON THE FRUIT AND POWER OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION.