After Easter: How to Live as Resurrection People Every DaySample

Have you ever noticed that Christmas is a much bigger deal than Easter? It feels like it’s the Christmas season for weeks and weeks. For months, our energy and preparation carried us towards this celebration.

However, Easter can feel like just a day. Without the same preparation and expectation, Easter cannot compete with Christmas. When Easter is over, I sometimes ask myself, “Is that it? I thought there was going to be more.”

Easter is over. So, now what?

The first disciples of Jesus also experienced an expectation gap. Yet, their gap is far different than ours. While we expected a big deal from Easter Sunday, the disciples didn’t expect anything. A few women went to the tomb to finish caring for the dead body of Jesus, and the 11 apostles didn’t even go anywhere near it, still reeling with grief and disappointment.

The first followers of Jesus didn’t expect resurrection, but they should have. Jesus told them in Matthew 16 that He must go to Jerusalem, be killed and raised on the third day. However, because they didn’t expect it, they didn’t go to the tomb looking to experience it.

Now, you might go to church on Easter Sunday or open up this reading plan, expecting to find someone talking about resurrection. But, do you expect resurrection when you go to work?When you sit down with a friend? When you get out of bed in the morning? Many of us believe in Jesus’ resurrection, but we don’t believe that power is still at work in the world today.

What does it look like to expect resurrection? Resurrection is the hope that out of death, life can emerge.

If you've experienced betrayal or relationship wounds, expecting resurrection might look like trusting someone enough to let them in. If you've lost a job, a business, or a dream, expecting resurrection is choosing to get your hopes up and dreaming again. If you've written someone off because they've disappointed you, been stubborn, not got it, or ridiculed you for your perspective, expecting resurrection is watching them change their perspective and posture towards you.

If you've encountered a broken, twisted, and heart-wrenching corner of the world, what if you kept believing in life and working for beauty, justice, and love?

When we experience resurrection, we can become resurrection people. We can become people who believe in the resurrection of Jesus. Because we have experienced resurrection personally, we should now live looking for and working towards resurrection.

The Apostle Paul went even further than just working towards resurrection. He said that the same power that resurrected Jesus is now at work in us. You are probably aware of blood pumping through your veins and arteries. But have you considered that resurrection power is also at work in you?

Years ago, Barbara Johnson wrote that "we are Easter people in a Good Friday world.” In a world marked by death and darkness, hate and anger, and disappointment and grief, we can live as resurrection people. We can be people of life and light who respond with love and peace. We can be people who’ve been healed and made whole.

Over the next few days, I will help you discover how to live as a resurrection person by following the pattern of the first disciples of Jesus. Easter may be over, but we’re just beginning to understand and experience the power of the resurrection of Jesus.