The Monday After The Resurrection

The Monday after Easter Sunday, we are encouraged  to continue remembering the miracle of the resurrection. Let it guide you every day with joy and purpose.

Monday is perhaps the most forgetful day of the week. We live much of our lives with this escapist drive toward the weekend, thinking those two days will fulfil our needs. More sleep! More time to work on those assignments! A chance to have clean clothes again! Time with people we like! Time with God! Time with good friends.

Then Monday rolls around. “How was your weekend?” someone asks. My mind goes blank. “Church was…really good,” I mutter vaguely, the Monday amnesia hitting hard.

As Christians, we have spent the past week in anticipation of Easter. We prepared our hearts. We reflected on the cross and its significance. We felt the long, heavy pause of the Sabbath between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday – waiting for the discovery of an empty grave and a risen Saviour. And then it comes. He comes. And then it’s Monday.

The temptation is to treat Easter weekend like it’s an ending. The eggs have all been found, Jesus has risen all the raised hands emoji stop. Then on Monday life is normal.

Today shouldn’t be normal – Jesus is risen. Easter was a revolution. Monday was the first day after which nothing remained the same ever again. When a man who claims to be God rises from the dead, “business as usual” isn’t a thing. From that day forward, you spend your entire life either affirming that he has risen or denying it. Easter isn’t just a time to pause and reflect on some nice truths we tend to forget about the rest of the year. It is the entire crux of the Christian faith. It is the only reason we have hope.

If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9 (NLT)).

Let’s Pray

Yahweh, Monday has come, the Holy Week has passed. But how we long to live by the marvellous story we have heard. Let us remain ever beside you at the table. Father show us who is hungry. And give us the courage to offer them bread from your table. Show us who is thirsty. And give us the strength to lift the cup of your love. Lord, most of all, show us how to linger at the table, serving others and doing all that we do in remembrance of You, and the way You were when You walked this earth. Accept these simple, limited words, of life after the resurrection. In Jesus name, Amen.