[VIDEO: After Easter by Joshua J Masters]
It’s the week after Easter. Our holiday clothes are back on their hangers, and our empty tomb memes are falling further down our social media pages. The leftover ham is tucked snuggly into the refrigerator, ready for its role in a much less grand series of lunches. Life will return to normal this week. But should it?
Life for the disciples didn’t return to normal after the resurrection. They could not say, “What a lovely Resurrection Day,” pretending the significance of Christ’s return would merely last a day. They tried to return to a normal life. They tried gathering together in their own doubt, but the truth of the resurrection confronted them (Luke 24:36-43, John 20:19-25). Some tried to return to their previous life as a fisherman, but again they were confronted by the truth of the resurrection (John 21:1-14). Their lives could never be the same again. It was impossible for them to return to their old lives, so they pursued the new lives God had planned for them. Even though some had doubts, they stopped passively waiting for Jesus to seek them out and started seeking Him. They actively searched for Christ so they might receive His direction (Matthew 28:16-20).
God changed the entire world through the submission of eleven men who were unable to ignore the resurrection. The rest of their lives were spent pursuing a relationship with Christ, striving to be personally transformed by Him, and desperately reaching out to those who had not experienced God’s grace.
How can we wake up on Monday unchanged by the resurrection of Sunday? Once we have encountered the horror-filled grace of the cross and the miraculous authority of the resurrection, how can we go back to our normal lives?
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