Alleluia, Christ is risen!
You have travelled through Lent. You have struggled with trying to see yourself more clearly in the light of Christ. You have gone down into the depths of the darkness of your fallen state and now, in Christ you rise again. But do you feel refreshed? Are you still tired from the struggle? Doesn't it look as if, rather than getting a break, you have climbed Golgotha only to see Everest in front of you across the ledge?
[PAUSE]
The downside of Easter Day is that it doesn't automatically mean that we are refreshed. To many, Easter Day is yet another day, a bank holiday, a brief respite before the drudgery of work comes in again. For some of us, Easter Day has lost its state as a special day - a day of rejoicing and cheer. There might be a nice bit of chocolate, a chance to take up what was laid down for Lent, and a hot cross bun, but the cheer will pass quickly as the toil begins again. For some people, life is too serious to be wasting on rejoicing and cheer.
The problem is that Society has forgotten what it is to be holy. The World makes us Christians forget what it is to be holy.
[PAUSE]
Easter Day is seen as the most holy day in the Christian year. For many Christians, Easter and Christmas fight it out for the most important day. For the World, Christmas wins hands down because birth is nicer to think about than death. Birth is easier to accept than Resurrection.
And that's why we Christians get tired. We are constantly battling the messages of the world enticing us to forget God. What the world wants us to forget is the commandment to keep the Sabbath Holy. The life of Our Lord Jesus Christ is not just Christmas and Easter. He lives a full life, every day is His. This is the day that the Lord has made, and Jesus rejoices and is glad in it. But do we?
[PAUSE]
Many do not. They hear the Lord tell those who are heavy laden to come to Him for rest, but something stops them. What stops them is a vision that has been clouded by the cares of this world and the lies of the Devil. The Resurrection may be two thousand years distant from us, but it is no less real. The years of doubt and sorrow, of fear, pain and conflict may cloud those two millennia but the Gospel does not change: it still says that today Christ is risen indeed. And tomorrow, it will say that Christ is risen. And the day after that, the Gospel will say that Christ is risen. Even on our darkest, most pain-filled, day of despair, grief, misery, heartache and futility, the Gospel will still say Christ is Risen! And it will still be true.
[PAUSE]
But we do need rest. This is why we are given the Sabbath Day in order to sit down and look at God and for Him to look at us. This is the day that we sit down and pour our grief and pain out from our heart into His through the wound in His side, and He responds by showing us that He is still alive, that life is worth living, that we are loved and that all the pains we take for Him are not futile. This is the day when we see His face look into ours and hear Him call our name even as he addresses Mary Magdalene by her name in her grief. And she looks up and, in the midst of her tears, she glorifies!
And this needs to be every Sunday - a day to sit down with God and connect with Him. This is the day of grace in the Holy Sacrament. This is the day when new believers are Baptised. This is our day, not the world's. This is our day, not our pay-packet's. This is our day of rest.
This is why we need to pull Sunday back out of the hands of the world. This is why we need to reclaim our rest, and the rest for others, too. We stop shopping, even online. We stop arranging for Amazon deliveries on a Sunday. We turn off the internet router and put down our phones. We even cease to talk about Church business with our priest on a Sunday. For today is our rest. Today, we recuperate by sitting and looking Our Risen Lord in His Risen eye, just being who we are and accepting who we are for His sake.
Today we are God's beloved and nothing in the entirety of existence will ever stop that from being true, rest assured!
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