The Five Easters
We are heading for Easter! This is the day we celebrate the rising of Jesus Christ from the dead! Easter is so central to Christian faith that it is the one item of belief that we cannot jettison without ceasing to be Christian altogether. When Paul writes to the Corinthians his conclusion is clear. “If He is not risen, then our faith is a fake. We have been going around telling lies. Christianity is a hoax.” But he is risen, indeed! So we celebrate Easter — but not just one. We get to celebrate five Easters.
The Easter of History
1970 years ago, Jesus of Nazareth was executed as a criminal. Less than 48 hours
later the tomb was empty. An Angel announced he had risen from the dead, and
over the next six weeks more than 500 people would see him and speak with him.
This was no ghost, though the disciples were prone to think that when they first
saw him. He ate food with them, showed them his wounded hands and side, and gave
evidence that he was in fact risen, not simply in their hopes or imaginations,
but in reality. It was the world's first Easter.
The Easter we celebrate
annually
There was no day like that first Easter, but every year, a day has been set
apart that we call Easter Sunday. It is to be a day that eclipses all other days
of the year. The Old Testament had its feast days that commemorated God's great
activity in their early history and the church of Jesus Christ understood the
wisdom of these great festivals. So the church established its own festivals to
underscore what God has done in Christ. Christmas reminds us of the incarnation
of God in Christ, Good Friday reminds us of His atoning for our sins, while
Easter tells us of His triumph over sin and death and hell.
The Easter we celebrate
weekly
There is, however, a third Easter. It is the Easter that recurs once each week
for every Sunday is Easter! Up until the Resurrection of Jesus, the seventh day
of the week was the day for public worship. The people of Israel would meet for
worship on Friday evenings at sunset, and celebrate with a day of rest until
sunset on Saturday evening. Each Sabbath day Israel celebrated God's great act
of creation. In six days he made the world and on the seventh day he rested. So
after six days of work we too could rest on the seventh.
But when that first Easter took
place, the early church knew that they had encountered a reality just as
wonderful as the creation of the world. It was an event that brought about the
re-creation of humanity. It had given the world a brand new start. It was the
beginning of a new age of the world. So how were we to celebrate it?
The earliest Christians met in the Jewish Synagogue on the evening of Sabbath to
worship, but as tensions increased they found themselves meeting together for
their own services for worship. Sometime during that first century they began to
worship together on the first day of the week in the early morning. Why the
first day? Because that was the day of resurrection. Why early morning? Because
He was raised in the early morning of the world's first Easter!
The Epistle of Barnabas, written
at the end of that first century, reads, “We keep the eighth day with
joyfulness, the day on which Jesus rose from the dead.” But even before that in
Acts 20:7 the church is breaking bread together on the first day of the week,
and Paul is calling for offerings to be set aside on the first day of the week,
and John is in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, the first day of the week. The
church made this great change in the calendar to give honor to Jesus who rose
from the dead on a Sunday morning. Every Sunday then is a celebration of
resurrection day.
The Easter we shall
celebrate one day
There is another Easter, however, that we shall celebrate one day. It is not the
one that occurred in the distant past, or one that recurs annually or weekly. It
is the Easter that awaits us all at the end of our life here. Many within
Ancient Judaism presumed either that death was the end of life or that what
happened after death was absolutely unknowable. Death brought dread or doubt,
but little hope and no certainty.
With the teachings of Jesus, however, the mists began to dwindle. He taught with
certainty about life beyond. Then one day all the proof we needed was provided.
On Friday he died. On Sunday he had been raised from the grave. The doubt
disappeared. The question was resolved, once for all. There is life beyond death
— and not just for him, but for all who are his followers. A personal
Resurrection Morning is promised to all who are in Christ. There is an Easter in
our future!
The Easter that is ever
present
There is, on top of all of the previous good news, a fifth Easter. Easter is
more than memory and more than hope. Easter is the continued presence of Jesus
Christ in our lives, moment by moment, day in and day out. On Easter day the
great church of God does not simply shout, “He was raised”. It declares, “He is
risen”. He is living among us and continues to be involved in our lives. That is
why the Easter story contains the words of Jesus, “Look around you, I am with
you always, even to the end of the age.” Down the centuries the words repeat, “I
will never leave you nor forsake you.” And throughout the moments of all our
days, the Resurrected Jesus is with us in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Every
day we live in the glorious aftermath of the resurrection. So let us, as we wake
up each morning, proclaim the good news, “He is risen indeed!”
online source: http://www.fmc-canada.org/archived%20articles/5easters.htm