A well intentioned not overly church-going friend of mine recently asked, “So, what do you do when the ‘busy season’ is over?”
I inquired, “What busy season?”
They responded, “You know, after all those extra services for Lent and Easter and all that…the ‘busy season.’”
I responded, “That’s when we make Easter real and get busy.”
He was perplexed. I spent more time than I should have explaining the entire theology of Easter; pretty sure he fell asleep half-way through.
But his question does raise a good point…Is Lent/Easter our ‘busy season?’ Or does the ‘busy season’ just begin at Easter?
I like to think that everyday after Easter (and by that I mean the first one…2,000 years ago) is Easter. Every single moment, day, and opportunity is another one given for us to participate in God’s resurrection reign. There is no slow season in the life of the church (although admittedly,
summer is a nice time).
Maybe from a worship/programming/extra stuff perspective we’d say Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter are the ‘busy seasons.’
But from a practice of faith perspective every day is busy. Everyday is full of opportunities to love and serve in the name of our Risen Christ. Every single day is an opportunity to participate with God in joy and power of resurrection. Each moment is one for us to accept again God’s love for us
and for the world and make it a wide-open movement.
When you think of it canonically (the order of Scripture) after Easter things got busy. They were fairly low-key for 40 days; and then the Ascension; and then Pentecost…and this is when it all gets super interesting. The church isn’t just a small band of a few dozen. By the turn of the century in year 100, the church is spread far and wide across the Ancient Near East and up into parts of what are today Greece and Turkey. It even went as far as Rome!
We don’t build up to a climax that then resolves as though we were walking up one side of a hill and then down the other. Instead, we build up to a climax that is still growing up and up and up and won’t reach its pinnacle until the return of Jesus at some undetermined day in the future.
We are always Easter people. We are always people of the power of resurrection life. We are always people of that truth and promise.
And so…our busy season is just beginning!
Christ is risen…He is risen indeed!