Faith Matters | E-Day plus 6: Practice the Resurrection

The Sunday after Easter typically marks one of the more challenging Sundays for pastors — at least it does for this one. Perhaps my heightened sensitivity over the biggest annual attendance drop hastens me back to our church’s first worship service: Easter 2014. When approximately 35 (out of 85) didn’t return the following week, E-Day plus 6 hit me like a Tyler Glasnow fastball in the gut. Who would stick around to celebrate for E-Day plus 13?

Yet honestly, the “Post-resurrection Day Blues” can drag you down whether in a pulpit or pew, or if you’re simply a pedestrian passerby. It might not literally occur on E-Day plus 6, but with every celebration, no matter how glorious, whether winning a game, experiencing a healing, or the ending of a war, letdowns will never lag far behind. Even celebrations of the highest order.

While reflecting upon this week’s potential Resurrection Day letdown, I drew some comfort from the fabled riddle: “If a tree falls in the woods and there is one there to hear it, does it still make a sound?” Technically, the answer is yes and no. Just google it.

In the same way, death still fell and Jesus still rose, regardless how of many heard it last week or will hear it this upcoming Sunday. In the twinkling of an eye, everything changed. But in another sense, not everything changed.

On Monday we still go back to work. Guests leave. Vacations end. Routine begins all over until the next time a celebration interrupts. So should we stop celebrating Easter, as some might argue, as no more special a day than the rest? Isn’t every Sunday THE day to celebrate the resurrection? I don’t think so.

Perhaps the letdown occurs because I/we overemphasize Easter as a passive celebration at the expense of an invitation into an active participation. The Apostle Paul defends the historicity and theological necessity of the resurrection not to remind the Corinthian church to celebrate Easter, but rather to participate in it.

‘Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

In other words, keep doing what you are already doing. We tend to forget that something so miraculous, so extraordinary, can also intersect the mundane and ordinary rhythms of life.

The Resurrection becomes precisely most personally precious, powerful, practical when we go back to school, back to work, back to the grind. We find resurrection hope while exhausted, in events less attended, during efforts which seem to amount to very little.

For those tired of culture wars, doubtful that a faithful presence, or a timely word can make a difference, remember the resurrection promise: “your labor is not in vain.” For those exhausted of seeing another social media post simply parroting FoxNews or MSNBC as the full picture of what is true, we can choose the ordinary, hard work of seeking to understand, not seeking to win. The resurrection is for you.

I love the gumption of the character Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) in Wonder Woman

“My father told me once, he said, “If you see something wrong happening in the world, you can either do nothing or you can do something.” And I already tried nothing.” — Steve from WWII

But gumption without grace leaves you exhausted. For those who have already tried something, and sensed the results not much different from when you tried nothing, take heart and hope. Your labors done in faith will continue well after you. I’ll leave you with the words of the poet Wendell Berry.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it..

Practice the Resurrection

Faith Matters is written by members of the Bradenton area clerical community. Geoff Henderson is pastor of Harbor Community Church (harborcommunitychurch.org) in Bradenton. You can reach him at geoff@harborcommunitychurch.org.