Is Easter more to us than special services, new clothes, Easter baskets, and dinner with family? Does the promise of Easter guide us through the other 364 days in the year? Or is it lost in our rear-view mirror as we drive home after Church on Easter Sunday? Doubt is a part of faith. We can know only partly, and what we don’t know often causes us to hesitate.
The disciples were no different. That first Easter morning they were in hiding, hoping the authorities wouldn’t do to them what they did to our Lord. The women were stronger than the men and they headed to the tomb to see Jesus was buried rightly. But he wasn’t in the tomb and they left running. All except Mary, who meets Jesus but fails to recognize him at first. The women tell the men, but only two are brave enough to go to the tomb themselves. And by evening only 10 of the closest 12 were huddled together in the upper room, where Jesus first appears to them. Even with their testimony, Thomas refuses to believe, until he is face to face with Jesus. Even then, they just don’t know how to respond. So, Jesus remains with them for 40 days before he finally goes home to the Father. If it was hard for those closest to Jesus to come to grips with the resurrection and its consequences, why are we surprised that many cannot accept that reality in their lives today?
I think we underappreciate the “season” of Easter. For those who don’t know that Easter is a season on the liturgical calendar, Easter Sunday begins a 7-week celebration of the resurrection and 49 days of preparation for how we should respond to this incredible gift of God. Lent’s 40 days of reflection and contemplation are over. It’s time to start planning how we will respond to the promise of our own resurrections by living with a new understanding of who we are as witnesses to the most incredible event in history. If we truly believe, we cannot simply keep doing the same old thing. So, how should we respond? Think about it this week, then pass it on.