Easter is always a special day! Certainly, the fact that we celebrate the preeminent truth of Christianity, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, is enough to make much of the day!!!
There are many other elements leading up to and a part of this day of rejoicing:
- Good Friday Services
- Choir rehearsals
- Preparation for guests / many invitations made
- Easter programs
- Music ministry
- Joy-filled congregational singing
- Resurrection themed sermons
- The gospel is proclaimed
- Lives changed
- Partaking of communion
- Reading of Scripture and prayer
- Entering the Sunday morning gathering with a spirit of expectancy and joy
- Family gatherings and hundreds of pictures
- Buffet meals and desserts
- Wearing new spring clothes
Why not? After all, This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24).
Craig Keener gives us some good insight on this “day.” Psalm 118:22-23 was fulfilled in Jesus’ ministry as He claimed (Mark 12:10-11), so also was Psalm 118:24: the great and momentous day the Lord had made, the day the Psalmist calls his hearers to celebrate, is the prophetic day when God exalted Jesus, rejected by the chief priests, as the cornerstone of His new temple (cf. Eph. 2:20). The verse points to a truth far more significant than merely the common biblical truth that God is with us daily; it points to the greatest act of God on our behalf, when Jesus our Lord died and rose again for us.
Next Sunday, we will corporately gather again and . . . our hearts, minds, bodies, and ministries should be as engaged and intentional as we were yesterday! We will not have all the “pageantry” of Easter, but we’ll still be celebrating the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ because He was raised on the first day of the week! We will proclaim the name of our living Savior in song, conversation, testimony, preaching, and prayer that in all things He will have the preeminence (Colossians 1:18).
So, let’s do it again next Sunday . . . and the next . . . and the next until He calls us Home!!
From A Pastor's Heart 