Easter.  Is it over or has it just begun?  I dare say for most folks in the United States of America, Easter comes and goes in one short day.  Some may give it a long weekend on the outside.  This year, the kids were out of school on Good Friday along with their mother who teaches in a different school district.  Her school is in session on Monday but the kids have that day off too.  So, Monday is my day to hang out the with the kiddos and celebrate a little downtime.  Then Easter is over, right?

I suppose that on some level it is.  At least in the secular world, everyone will go back to work on Monday or Tuesday.  The next Sunday, liturgically known as the “Second Sunday of Easter” is also known as “Cannon Sunday” among clergy.  That’s the day you could fire a cannon in the sanctuary on Sunday morning and not hurt anybody!  My father, also a Presbyterian minister, says that no minister has the ego it takes to preach on Easter and the Sunday after.  Typically, a church will have it’s largest attendance of the year on Easter and the smallest numbers the week following.  How soon we forget.

Easter comes at the end of Lent, my favorite time of year.  I enjoy the extra prayers, the longer meditations, the truth that we are to reflect upon our own spiritual lives in hopes that we might narrow the chasm between ourselves and our God.  Holy Week, My favorite week of the year reminds us that we ourselves play a role in the crucifixion of the Christ.  The reason Easter is such good news is because Holy Week is such bad news.  During Lent, we reflect upon our own sinfulness and our own lack of faith.  Lent ends in Holy Week where we collectively gather and watch in wonder as we all cry “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday and “Crucify him” on Good Friday.  Then comes Easter, Resurrection day, the day the truth of the gospel comes to light.  The chasm between us and God cannot be narrowed by those things we have been thinking about.  That chasm has already  been completely closed by God’s actions in the death, life, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  “Alleluias” resound again in the church.  Our relationship with God has been made perfect by God's actions.  Then we all go home and hunt Easter eggs with our kids and grandkids.  But it doesn’t end there.

We give as much time to Easter as we do to Lent, six weeks.  Easter does not end on Easter but Easter begins on Easter.  This party goes on for a long time.  We celebrate the day of resurrection until the day of Pentecost (May 31 this year), that day the Holy Spirit came to the church, born of Christ’s free will to sustain us until he comes again.

I learned how to celebrate Easter properly as a very young child.  It seems that several weeks after Easter, there was a horrible odor coming from my bedroom.  After some parental investigation and a prison style search of that room, the culprit was found in  my dresser drawer in the form of the most beautifully decorated hard boiled egg anyone had ever seen.  Apparently my young mind had opted to savor the moment of Easter and keep that egg.  I don’t recommend savoring Easter in this way but I pray you will find a way to hold on to the resurrection of Christ.

What eggs will you savor in the weeks to come?