Now What?

Did you know there is a name for the fifty days between Resurrection Sunday and Pentecost?

 

It’s called “Eastertide” and it has traditionally been celebrated by a single joyful feast called “the great Lord’s day.”

 

There are many varying traditions for the Sundays in between Easter and Pentecost, and that’s all fine and well, but my heart is wondering what was going on in the hearts and minds of those eleven disciples and the rest of Jesus’s followers back in Jerusalem some twenty centuries ago.

 

The women find an empty tomb, Peter and John (not entirely in belief of what the women have told them) run to the tomb and find it empty. Jesus then appears to Mary Magdalene and then the other women. Luke 24:34 says He appeared to Peter. He appeared to two of His followers on the road to Emmaus. The two ran back to Jerusalem and, while the ten of them were talking about that, He appears to them inside a locked room!

 

A week later, he shows up again behind locked doors and removes all doubt from Thomas. (John  20:27) Then He appears to seven of them at the Sea of Galilee and restores Peter. (John 21) He appears again on the heights of Galilee and gives His disciples the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) and then He appears to a crowd of more than 500. (1 Cor 15:6), followed by an appearance to James (1 Cor 15:7) and then the Ascension. (Mark 16:19 and Luke 24: 50-53) 

 

So, at first, there are these scattered appearances to just a few and the group is skeptical. But, by the time He shows up behind locked doors talking with ten out of the eleven, they had to be pretty excited. I’m kind of trembling with excitement as I think about it.

 

The disciples had seen miracles quite a few times. But, restoring sight or making a lame man walk was something the disciples had done themselves when He sent out the 72 in Luke 10. Granted, raising a stinky, dead-for-four-days corpse like Lazarus from the dead was a big deal, but Jesus had been crucified. They had seen and watched Him be beaten to a pulp, whipped to a bloody mess, stabbed with a spear, and nailed to a cross. Lazarus just got sick and died. This crucifixion thing was much, much different.

 

No wonder once these people were convinced that it was truly Jesus and He was truly alive, they would go on to proclaim His message of the Gospel without fear or hesitation. No wonder once the Holy Spirit came upon them, they were unstoppable.

 

God Himself had changed the course of human history. 

 

Not only had the Messiah come as the prophecies had foretold, but that Messiah had done the impossible. He took all the sin and all the shame and all the guilt that had been leveled against all of humanity and ever would be leveled against humanity and He destroyed it there on the cross! And, just to prove that in doing so He was victorious over death itself, He walked out of that grave ALIVE!

 

I cannot imagine how the disciples could not utter “HALLELUJAH” at the end of every sentence they spoke until the day they took their last blessed breaths! 

 

So, as I look back upon Easter, I am most certainly NOT wondering, “Now what?”

 

I am thinking every day I am alive to proclaim it is a day of celebration –a single, joyful feast called “The Great Day of the LORD!”

 

HALLELUJAH!

 

 

Today’s Praise

Colossians 2:13-15

You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross. (NLT)