We Are Easter People

We are a Sunday people living in a Friday world they say. I am not sure who first said it. I tried googling it but just ran into a list of other people writing blogs and articles about the same theme.

We (Christians) are an Easter Sunday people living in a Good Friday world.

I understand why we write this, why the phrase is oft repeated at this time of year.

Our world feels so broken at times. So full of pain and heartache and illness and true cruelty. A broken world full of broken people. A Good Friday world where people would rather crucify the leader of a religious rebellion, a leader that claims to be God incarnate, a man that heals and teaches us to love our neighbors and turn the other cheek, than allow his sedition to continue.

And as fixers, people who want to know how to make things better, we often will focus on this part of the story. The pain on the cross. The death of Jesus to atone for the sins of mankind, the sins of me. It helps sometimes to know that a price was paid, even if it was by someone else, than to believe that we are worthy just because.

It is easier to focus on the price paid than to live in the grace received.

Sinners saved by grace we say, always focused on who we were before the cross.

I thought the cross was meant to change that. It is finished, Jesus said. Finished. Done. Past. No longer.

This is Christ's body broken for you. This is his blood shed for you. 

These words, these communion words.

Do this in remembrance of me, he said.

We remember his broken body, the blood spilled out.

But we forget the why. We forget that all of this is so we can have the resurrection. The He Is Risen.

It is good to remember this day, Good Friday. But we don't live here.

We live in the Resurrection.

He is Risen. He is Risen Indeed.