Easter was great here in Pauls Valley. In addition to being the most meaningful of all days for Christians, the weather was perfect, the music was perfect, seeing people's friendly faces was perfect, the Easter Egg hunt after church was perfect. Time with friends was perfect. Notice all the past-tense? Easter 2022 was perfect? It turns out that Easter is not a single day.
To begin with, every time we celebrate the Lord's Day--which is what Reformed worship calls the worship service that we share every Sunday--every time we celebrate the Lord's Day, we celebrate Easter. It is the day of Resurrection every single Sunday, bar none. Those who "give up something for Lent" don't have to give it up on Sundays because Sundays are feast days--every Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection of the Lord.
Easter is also a season on the liturgical calendar. In the language of the liturgical calendar, the worship service that we celebrated on April 17 was "the Resurrection of the Lord." After that, we've stayed in the season of Easter and will do so until Pentecost on June 5th. In the rhythm of the church year, we started with the anticipation of the coming of Jesus in Advent, then his incarnation on Christmas, then we saw who and what Jesus is in the season of Epiphany until Lent when we see our own sin and need for Christ's saving power, then in Holy week we see what great love he had for us to die for us, then on the day of Resurrection we see his victory over death. For the whole season of Easter, we will be celebrating that victory. After that, we receive the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and live our lives as disciples until we celebrate his coming again in the end on Christ the King Sunday. And then the year starts over again with Advent. So Easter is one season of the long arc of salvation history, and we celebrate it not just for a day or even just every Sunday, but also for a whole season.
There's a trope where a hero has done something to impress or offend someone who becomes a loyal follower or avowed opponent, but when confronted with this thing they've done, can't remember because it's so routine: "for me it was just a Tuesday." For us, God is God every day just like a hero in a movie is a hero every day. But there's a difference. If this little trope mapped to God, then the next thing would be to say, "For God it's just routine; just another Tuesday." What God did in Jesus on Easter was once for all time. The difference is that instead of God dying over and over every day like a hero stopping crime over and over every day, God did it once. The strife is o'er, the battle done. The victory of life is won. The thing we do every day is be grateful and celebrate and enjoy the blessings of Easter. Instead of taking great things and making them boring like in the trope--instead of taking Easter and making it routine like just another Tuesday, what we do is the opposite. We take boring, routine life like Tuesday and bring Sunday into it. Instead of "just another Tuesday," it's "Alleluia! Everyday is Sunday! Every day is Easter!" Keep being grateful. Keep celebrating. Keep enjoying the blessings of Easter every single day for the rest of your Easter life.
Chas