When I was young in the 70s, we sang an Easter song by Donald Marsh with the refrain:
Ev’ry morning is Easter morning, from now on!
Ev’ry day’s resurrection day, the past is over and gone!
Goodbye guilt, goodbye fear, good riddance. Hello Lord, Hello sun!
I am one of the Easter People! My new life has begun!
It was kind of campy but also kind of catchy – the kind of song that had you snapping your fingers or tapping your toes because it just made you smile and feel good! I think my longer-term appreciation for the song came however from its longer-term theological truth: ev’ry morning is Easter morning, from now on! More than a once-a-year event, Christ’s resurrection from the dead created an every-day reality that gave the believers a new perspective on everything around them. Biblically, that new reality of Jesus kept emerging to different people in different ways for 50 days until Pentecost. And it gave the believers still another and eternal reality: living their faith together in the Spirit as the church, reaching out to others in need – just as Jesus had done. The church at various times has lost sight of those essential truths. Every year, FUMC Plano intentionally places those truths squarely in front of ourselves:
We joyously worship the risen Christ on Easter Sunday.
We joyously go out in service to others the next Sunday.
It’s why we call it, “Mission Together.” It enables us to live out our Easter days together … for others. We think the “together” piece is so important that we hold only one worship service – this time with communion – so that we can worship with those in our church family we don’t normally see, and then go serve with them.
So let go of any fear and guilt and instead, wear (or buy) your church t-shirt and blue jeans, worship together and then GO, as one of the Easter people … together, confident that Jesus will be waiting ahead of us wherever and in whomever we go to serve.
Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,
