When all the Easter eggs are found, the chocolate bunnies consumed, and the Easter baskets are put away…and all these items go on sale at the supermarket…the world moves on from Easter and gets ready for the patriotic holidays.
Not so for us in the church!
After our 40 days of Lent and our journey with Jesus through Holy Week, the empty tomb and Jesus’ victory over sin and death is one very long celebratory party that we call “The Great Fifty Days.”
This a time when our Scriptures are full of stories of revelation (in fact we hear parts of the Book of Revelation to John) and the call of disciples and followers of Jesus to come out of the shadows and live into the hope of the resurrection. The Acts of the Apostles has many stories of the power of healing and conversion. The Acts book is really The Gospel of Luke, Part II or we might see it as “The Jesus Movement Takes Off.” The Book of Revelation is written by a John who some believe might have been the evangelist John of the Gospels and the Letters in the New Testament. The visions he describes reflect the persecution Christians were enduring under the Roman Empire during the reigns of Emperors Domitian and Nero. John’s fervent wish was to see the Christians saved from painful ordeal that pitted Pagans and Jews against them. It is a reminder during these days that even as we live into the hope of the resurrection and celebrate the reality that Jesus is alive, we are also still in a moment of things are “not yet” perfect. God has raised Jesus, and the struggle continues.
This is also a season to prepare for baptism. And we will be having both adult and child baptisms this Pentecost. The Baptism service is a beautiful ritual of welcome and inclusion with water and oil, remembering the way Jesus entered into our every day life, challenged the injustices of the world, took the fears and hatreds of the world into his body on the cross, and left them behind with the linen cloth in the tomb with his resurrection. This is the story we get to join with our baptisms, and makes us siblings together in the Body of Christ.
Alleluia! Alleluia!