Eastertide: Feasting in the Season of Resurrection
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By Lydia Foreman
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
These words kick off the season in the church calendar called Eastertide - the 50 days of feasting and celebrating which Christians are called to do in light of the hope of Jesus’ resurrection. Prior to this, we soberly entered the season of Lent on Ash Wednesday, and we fasted from good things so that we might focus on confession, self-examination and self-denial. And then 40 days later came Easter Sunday. The snow melted, the sun shone, we saw some people we hadn’t seen in perhaps over a year, we worshiped together, and, most importantly, we feasted together!
But….now what? While we may have faithfully abstained from chocolate or Netflix or social media for 40 days, and partied hard on Easter, are we still feasting? Do we even feel like it?
In many ways, it’s simpler to faithfully fast than to faithfully feast, isn’t it? Sure, it takes a measure of self-discipline to give up sugar or alcohol, but it feels right, and it’s easier to go about it. There’s something trickier to making a plan to continually feast than simply deleting the Instagram app off my phone. How do we even do it? And, more importantly, why do we even do it?
As New Testament theologian N.T. Wright says, even though it’s the reverse culturally, for Christians, Easter should far outstrip Christmas in terms of the size of its celebration. This should be our biggest party of the year. This is our greatest festival. In terms of the Bible, If we forgot about Christmas, we’d lose 2 chapters Matthew and Luke. But if we took away Easter, there’d be no New Testament, no Christianity, and as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:17, we’d all still be stuck in our sins.
And, while we rejoice at the good ending of the Jesus story - what about our stories? We still face our own problems. We’re still waiting to hear back about the job we applied for that we are starting to get desperate about. We’re still waiting on the results from a medical test that plagues our thoughts and sleep. And the news from the world isn’t any better. We don’t know for sure when we will truly return to post-pandemic reality, but we do know more people will die before it does. Before we hear the verdict of the murder trial of a white police officer killing one black man, we read of yet another black man’s life ending at the hands of a cop. We keenly feel that our world and the one at large is not right, and does God even see? It feels more appropriate to reach for the lamenting words of the Psalmist, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” than the joyful “Alleluia!” of Easter.
And yet this is our calling as believers - to view the world through the lens of Easter, through the perspective of resurrection. It’s not just a happy ending for Jesus, but for you, for me, our world! We feast because our belief in the resurrection recognizes more value in this present world, not less. We enter our spaces of home and work as resurrection people which means that we live in anticipation of the final new creation.
And so during this season of Eastertide, if you fasted during Lent, make a plan to feast even harder now. Rather than putting down, instead take up...something beautiful, something fruitful, something good. Celebrate with friends. Do things that affirm our hope in the Gospel because God’s new creation is under way, and we are part of it. And this is what the season of Easter is all about.
To reach Pastor of Family and Kids Lydia Foreman, email lydia@missiodeislc.com. If you’d like to submit content for the blog, reach out to Director or Worship and Arts David Burchfield at david@missiodeislc.com.