I’ve always been a guy that likes holidays. Christmas, 4th of July, New Year’s Eve, Thanksgiving and Easter are my top 5. As I celebrate those, give me all the cheesy, stereo-typical things that go along with them. For Christmas, I’m talking Christmas music in September, wearing sweaters almost everyday, fireplaces, and egg nog. 4th of July, I’m wearing my red, white, and blue and will probably have “Stars and Stripes Forever” stuck in my head all week. New Year’s Eve, staying up ‘till midnight, resolutions, and watching the ball drop. Thanksgiving, you can’t beat turkey and football. And of course, as we’ve just celebrated Easter, you better believe me and my family were in our pastels, at church all morning, took our family pictures, hunted Easter eggs, and ate ham for dinner with our entire around the table. Holidays are awesome, why not enjoy them and all that comes with them?
Easter Sunday is always a big day in the church world as well. And It should be. We should go all out to celebrate the fact that Jesus is alive. We should do everything we can to get people to come to church with us. We should pray that our buildings would be packed out. Worship teams should go all out and do new things, sing powerful songs, and be creative. Pastors should spend that extra time on their messages and think of the best ways to communicate the gospel and it’s power. Church staffs should spend time praying over their campuses and their people. Easter Sunday is a special day and we should make it special.
My question is… Why do we not do these things every Sunday?
In reality, every Sunday is Easter Sunday. One similar blog post on the Doxology & Theology site by Matt Boswell put it this way, “Easter is not the ‘Super Bowl of the church.’” Easter isn’t our one opportunity to “pull out all the stops” and go big. Boswell reminds us that Easter is just that; it’s an opportunity. ‘Cause, yeah, there is the reality that we had a lot of “CEO - Christmas & Easter Only” church-goers in our buildings this past Sunday. So, I do hope the our churches went all out to make them feel welcomed, to make them feel loved, and most importantly to show the love of Jesus. But what Boswell communicates and what I want to share today is it isn’t and shouldn't be our only opportunity to do all of those things.
While Easter is important, let’s remember, every Sunday is Easter Sunday. The church changed their day for corporate worship to Sunday because of Resurrection Sunday. The beauty of the gospel is that Christ died as the atonement for our sins, yes and amen, but He didn’t just pay the price and move on. He defeated death, hell, and the grave by rising from the dead. And through the substitutionary atonement, we are given a new nature; Christ’s nature. Therefore, if Christ has defeated death, and we’ve been given Christ’s nature, we too, through Christ, don’t have to fear death, hell, and the grave. We have hope of a new and eternal life through Him. So when gather every Sunday with that in mind, we truly have reason to celebrate!
What I’m afraid is happening in our churches (and has been happening for a long time) is we’re not celebrating; we’re enduring. Enduring our hour of “worship” each week so that we can mark it off our list. I feel that if we, as believers, truly came into our church buildings each week with the mindset of celebration, like we do on Easter, things just might look different.
As church leaders, let’s also remember that every Sunday is Easter. Every Sunday, we should go all out to celebrate the fact that Jesus is alive. We should do everything we can to get people to come to church with us. We should pray that buildings would be packed out. Worship teams should go all out and do new things, sing powerful songs, and be creative. Pastors should spend that extra time on their messages and think of the best ways to communicate the gospel and it’s power. Church staffs should spend time praying over their campuses and their people.
He's still risen!
Every Sunday is Easter Sunday!
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