On Monday, After Easter Sunday :: Who is Easter for?

Today, in my world…there are carry-on suitcases full of dirty clothes that still need to be unpacked from a quick trip to visit family. There are strings of plastic grass and chocolate wrappers strewn around my home. Beautiful Easter outfits are rolled up and stuffed in grocery bags that are still sitting in my mini-van. This rainy Monday morning couldn’t feel any more opposite to yesterday’s glorious Easter sunshine.

Perhaps you are looking around at your circumstances and feeling like Easter is already a distant reality, a yesterday event, a memory to be stored…or forgotten. Maybe yesterday was disappointing or difficult. Maybe you feel a little disconnected or numb in general about holidays.

I would be lying if I said that my Monday morning doesn’t seem, at first, to be totally disconnected from the reality that was/is Easter Sunday.

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It has me wondering, how many people might be looking around at their Monday morning and thinking is Easter really even my “thing”? Does Easter really matter to me today? Who is Easter even for anyway?

Is it just for kids?
You know, fun games and hunts and sugar-levels spiking to the point of giddy energy.

Or is it for the religious?
The rule following, tradition-abiding folks.

Or is it for the families?
The ones who still like each other or at least who tolerate a (free) meal together occasionally.

Is it for the well-dressed?
The wrinkle-free, latest trend, matching pastel type people.

Or is it for the consumer, when sales are good and every store has something new to offer for springtime?

Maybe it is for the home improve-er?
The long weekend is perfect for heading to the hardware store to buy mulch and flowers or supplies for that spring project.

So who is Easter for then?

I believe that Easter is for the Monday mornings. It is for the broken hearted and the broken down. It is for the wound that won’t heal. It is for the body that is aging. It is for the tree whose leaves are diseased. It is for the dream unrealized. It is for the civil war-torn country. It for the runner whose strength is failing. It is for the ocean’s coast strewn with trash. It is for the childhood ended too early, the adulthood ended too soon, the elderly left alone. It is for the mundane and the tired, the down and depressed. It is for the hospital rooms and homeless dormitories. It is for battlefields and for the lecture halls. It is for the messy, the ruined, the forgotten. It is for all souls, and for all of creation.

Easter is for you and for me.

Easter is for anyone with bad news needing good news. It is for anything futile or broken needing a lasting fix. It is for anything tired longing for new strength.

Don’t be deceived about the reality of Easter…

Yesterday, the eggs were hunted, dyed, counted, stepped on, consumed, and cast aside….but, we don’t box up Easter until next year…we don’t cast it aside for another day. No, we hang every moment on the promise that is Easter. We view every circumstance in light of the good news that Jesus is the King of Kings, that Jesus is alive, and that Jesus is coming back to restore all things.

Everything finds its meaning in that reality. Even the meaningless, even when we can’t wrap our minds around it…we are free from the power of sin and death, and one day we will be free from the presence of sin and death.

So let our Monday, our mundane, and our miserable places be grounded in Jesus. Let us cling to the hope found only in Jesus. Even in the face of hardship and trial and pain and sorrow and whatever circumstance threatens our hope…we boast in what Jesus did for us. Easter is for you. Christ died. For you. Don’t let Monday squeeze out the miracle of Easter. Grasp it. Trust it. Trust Him.

Singing His grace,

Jess