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Still celebrating

April 24, 2009
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sharperFocus

by Erin Wikle –

Weeks after yet another Easter has passed, my two year-old still asks, “More eggs, Mommy?” Her first successful Easter egg hunt has transformed a normal household staple into the most exciting experience my little one has undergone in her short life. I’ve tried to explain that Easter is over, but talk about persistence—the girl wants more eggs.

It’s actually funny, isn’t it? It seems there is such momentous build up to this holiday, and within a blink of an eye, the eggs are gone, the hot cross buns grow stale, the lilies are thrown out, and we stick Christ back in the grave.

Ouch.

Why do we stop celebrating so quickly? You would think that a life-changing miracle of such magnitude would warrant at least a few more days of Christ-centered contemplation.

Ah, but only days after celebrating, I witnessed an instance of “corporate forgetfulness” that only highlights our neglect of the cross. Our church became frazzled by the onset of “new opportunities,” and its carefully put together fruit basket became upset. Words were thrown around, people were hurt, and suddenly our purpose was lost, and our pride became all that mattered.

If we constantly see “other opportunities” in the church as adversity to what is already well established, we will forever remain a stagnate body—which really is just a polite way of saying: we’re better off dead. But how can death and resurrected life co-exist? It grieves me to imagine my Savior and God weeping bitterly over those who would rather war against each other in the church than against the greater evil that is tearing apart the world outside our walls.

This cannot go on!

When Christ died—we died too. When he conquered the grave three days later—we did too. Yet, if we are not living resurrected lives every day, then there’s really little point in making such a fuss come once a year on Easter Sunday. Which do you think is more pleasing to our King:

The celebratory, corporate, pomp and circumstance, brass and choral infused Sunday commemorating Christ’s victory of the grave?
Someone who recognizes a need for more of him and less of oneself whose life is full and overflowing with the resurrection power of Jesus Christ every day?

My guess is that God is interested in every single day of your life. Can you say the same of him?

To believe that the wounds of Christ were, in fact, real, that it was his garments that were blood stained and soaked with the sweat of a Savior, and that it was he alone who agonized for hours until he breathed his last–THIS CHOICE TO BELIEVE CANNOT BE ONE OF PASSIVITY. The choice to believe should be one of aggressive passion and unrelenting pursuit. If it is anything less, we simple cannot thrive in the Kingdom of God.

I’m still celebrating. I’m rejoicing in my salvation and praising God for saving a wretch like me. I’m asking him to refine me, to make me new, to restore me, and to strengthen me to fight the battles that he has asked me to fight. I resonate with Paul on this one:

“Everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!” (Philippians 3:7-11, NLT, emphasis added).

Brothers and sisters, let us live resurrected lives. Even weeks after we have sung our songs and celebrated, we must press on with passion and not allow Easter to become a faded memory until next year. The power of Christ’s death and resurrection must be vibrant and alive within us every day.

(Little Eva, we can go on an Easter egg hunt anytime).

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