Easter's over, right?

Yesterday was Easter.  I have yet to venture out into the retail world to see if all the usual Easter decorations, candies, and assorted gifts that are associated with the day are removed. Today, I'm recovering from a full day of church and family events, enjoying the luxury of working from home with email and wi-fi.

2000 or so years ago, it was different.  You see, we in 2015 have the luxury of thinking of that DAY - the day that Jesus rose from the grave. Easter day.  And then we go out and live our lives normally.  But for those first Christians, it was FAR from a normal day.

For you see, on that Monday, only a handful of folk knew that Jesus had risen.  In the Gospels, we have accounts of Him appearing to a few women, to his disciples, to select others, and then we have more detail in Luke's Gospel of appearances to several hundred.  But, to distill it down, the Gospels tell us of only five people who actually SAW the empty tomb: the two Marys, a Joanna, and Peter and John.  That's it. But for the many hundreds who saw Jesus in the next few weeks, to them, the Resurrection was not the event witnessed by a few, but the person of Jesus, walking with them, talking with them, eating with them, and showing Himself to be radiant and glorified.  To them, THAT was the Resurrection.  

And so, for us, we celebrate Easter, but then we pack it away until next year.  But Easter isn't just a day - it's a season!  It STARTED yesterday, but it goes on.  I like how our church observes these days as more than just a single day, but as a season.  We observe it by calling next Sunday "The 2nd Sunday of Easter" and so on.  But, shouldn't we, in our own lives, observe the Resurrection as not just "Easter", but every day since then?  Maybe even just observing it based on what those early Christians saw it as - the days following His rising from the tomb until he ascended 40 days later. Even if we do that, we should find ourselves dwelling more on the significance of the total Resurrection experience, and not just Easter Sunday.

Soli Deo Gloria