IT"S HAPPENING!

This week I saw the perfect Easter sign (one that every church leader—from choir member and administrative assistant to music minster and pastor, probably has tacked up in a corner of their mind):

He is Risen

WE ARE CLOSED

Happy Easter!

 

Some of us can’t wait for Easter Monday (or even Easter afternoon!). We have done our best through choir rehearsals, Maundy Thursday’s Last Supper, Friday’s Tenebrae service, prepping the sanctuary for Easter, getting ready to welcome guests to worship, and the grand finale: Easter worship! Jesus might have come out of the tomb…but by the time worship is over, we can’t wait to crawl into our bed. We can’t wait to hang a “We are closed” sign up.

But, funny thing.

Resurrection happened!

Through no effort of our own, God breaks through with the Good News that death no longer has the final say. Whatever deaths we face, God promises new life through resurrection power. And this means that anything is possible.

I always couldn’t wait to finish the Lent-Holy Week-Easter marathon and crash. But the message of new life somehow got through to the church—it is time to rise and shine and do a new thing in the name of Jesus! New discipleship programs, new outreach ministries, new mission engagements…

And I was too depleted to respond well to the signs of resurrection happening in my church.

My prayer is that you have paced yourself well this week, so that as resurrection takes hold in your church, you will be ready to engage in the new life God is bringing forth in your very midst.

This is no time to repeat Good Friday’s phrase, “It is finished.”

In fact, God’s only just begun.