Time to Celebrate!
Now we can celebrate! Christ is risen! Hallelujah! We don't have to hold back any more. But I confess I have already been celebrating earlier in Lent.
It’s hard to forget that we are “Easter people.” Even in the midst of the solemn observance of Lent, knowing the end of the story makes it hard for us to keep from celebrating sometimes. Is this desire to celebrate inappropriate?
Is there something wrong with us when even on solemn days like Maunday Thursday we just want to embrace our Christian friends and rejoice in the communion that we share?
Maybe not. After all, we have much to celebrate! And even as we fast and pray and observe the solemnity of seasons such as Lent and Advent, we can’t deny the unspeakably good news—Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! Hallelujah! I know that we are told to avoid that word during Lent. But sometimes our hearts are so full of the joy of the risen Christ that no other word will suffice.
Maybe you were successful in containing your celebrations and your hallelujahs during Lent. I confess that I slipped a few times this year. But I hope now, post-Easter, when there is no need to restrain our unbridled passion for our risen Lord, that we will raucously shout and celebrate the amazing news that “Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more!’
Jesus told the bewildered disciples that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood will abide in Him, and He in them. We have an abiding relationship with the one who came down from heaven to live as one of us, teaching us, healing us, loving us, and dying for us. And God vindicated his perfect life by raising Jesus from the dead, so that he could ascend in our flesh back to heaven to intercede for us and to invite us to participate in the ministry of God.
Thanks to the good news of resurrection, we are forever an “Easter people”—even at those times when we focus on sin and suffering. It is right and good to reflect on the sorrow and sacrifice associated with the cost of sin and the passionate embodied response of our Lord on Good Friday. But may we ever remember that we have fellowship with God because of the completion of God’s salvation for us accomplished on the first Easter morning. And may we ever raise our hallelujahs, today and always.
Christ is risen! Hallelujah!
It’s hard to forget that we are “Easter people.” Even in the midst of the solemn observance of Lent, knowing the end of the story makes it hard for us to keep from celebrating sometimes. Is this desire to celebrate inappropriate?
Is there something wrong with us when even on solemn days like Maunday Thursday we just want to embrace our Christian friends and rejoice in the communion that we share?
Maybe not. After all, we have much to celebrate! And even as we fast and pray and observe the solemnity of seasons such as Lent and Advent, we can’t deny the unspeakably good news—Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! Hallelujah! I know that we are told to avoid that word during Lent. But sometimes our hearts are so full of the joy of the risen Christ that no other word will suffice.
Maybe you were successful in containing your celebrations and your hallelujahs during Lent. I confess that I slipped a few times this year. But I hope now, post-Easter, when there is no need to restrain our unbridled passion for our risen Lord, that we will raucously shout and celebrate the amazing news that “Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more!’
Jesus told the bewildered disciples that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood will abide in Him, and He in them. We have an abiding relationship with the one who came down from heaven to live as one of us, teaching us, healing us, loving us, and dying for us. And God vindicated his perfect life by raising Jesus from the dead, so that he could ascend in our flesh back to heaven to intercede for us and to invite us to participate in the ministry of God.
Thanks to the good news of resurrection, we are forever an “Easter people”—even at those times when we focus on sin and suffering. It is right and good to reflect on the sorrow and sacrifice associated with the cost of sin and the passionate embodied response of our Lord on Good Friday. But may we ever remember that we have fellowship with God because of the completion of God’s salvation for us accomplished on the first Easter morning. And may we ever raise our hallelujahs, today and always.
Christ is risen! Hallelujah!
posted by Frank at 8:25 AM
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