The Truth about Monday

Stan and Jan Berenstain wrote and illustrated so many wonderful children’s books.
A favorite in our house as the children were growing up was, Too Much Birthday.
Five times a year we celebrate the birthdays of my children.
This book was a wonderful lesson in moderation as you celebrate.

There is such a thing as too much birthday.
Parties that out-do the one before, or out-do the party of a friend.
If they went ice skating, you had to go on a rock climbing wall.
If they went to play laser tag, you had to go bowling.

Every child needs to leave the party with a gift of some sort.
Every child needs to win a prize.
Every child but the birthday child, of course.
They don’t get prizes and goody bags since they are the ones getting the presents.

It all gets to be a bit much.
Egalitarian thinking has even crept into our birthday celebrations.
Too much birthday?
Perhaps, or maybe too much focusing on the wrong things.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life appears, then you will appear with Him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)

Can you have too much Easter?
Can you dismiss Easter Sunday when Easter Monday rolls around?

You can, if your focus is in the wrong place.

Easter is the time when the stores display their new spring line of clothes.
Easter is the time of baskets, and candy, and hats, and shoes.
Easter is the time of bunnies, and baby chicks, and dyeing eggs, and flowers.
Easter is simply a doorway to spring.

You can have too much of that kind of Easter!
That kind of Easter lasts as long as the candy lasts.
That kind of Easter lasts until the first scuff mark appears on the new shoes.
That kind of Easter is centered on all the temporal things that change as the wind shifts.

There is a satiation point for that kind of Easter.

I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection of the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
(Philippians 3:10-14)

What about that kind of Easter?
Easter that focuses on the satisfaction of the wrath of God.
Easter that promises new life for us because Jesus rose from the dead.
Easter that took the sting out of death and will one day make its defeat possible.
Easter that enables us to press on.

You can never have too much of that kind of Easter.

That kind of Easter does not need any moderation.
That kind of Easter is a Go and Tell kind of Easter.
That kind of Easter is one that will forever amaze and astound us.
That kind of Easter is the greatest story ever told.

We put away the clothes, and the shoes, and the baskets.
We must never put away Easter.
We have to keep it out in the forefront, easily accessible, readily retrievable.
We must keep Easter on our tongues, in our mind, and in our heart.

We live in an Easter-ed world.
Much of the world is unaware of that truth.
Much of the world packs Easter away the day after.
Easter Sunday; regular Monday.

That thinking is terribly wrong.
We keep Easter in a little box to be packed away until next year.
Out of sight, out of mind.
We must have a lived-out Easter.

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. (Philippians 3:7-9)

That kind of Easter cannot be packed away.
That kind of Easter is too big for any box.
That kind of Easter must be cherished and lived out and told and kept.
Cherished, lived out, told, and kept until Jesus comes back.

Until Jesus comes back and we are raised.
Raised with glorious bodies, fit to live with Him in heaven.
Jesus was raised first so that we could be raised.
We are Easter-ed.

Go live your Easter-ed life on this Easter Monday.