Slideshow image

How can we get practical with Easter if we already celebrated it?  Wouldn’t that be beating a dead horse?  The short answer is no.  There is an important aspect of how we celebrate it, not just that we do.  Obviously, it is after Easter.  Anything said here would seemingly have to wait to be applied another year from now, right?  The short answer is no, again.  What we celebrate on Easter Sunday is what we celebrate intrinsically every single Sunday of every week of every year. This is what I hope to expound on with practical applications in this AAT (Application After Thought).  

Pastor’s first point in answering the question “Why celebrate Easter?” is, “We celebrate Easter because Jesus ROSE from the dead.”  This is the heart of why Christians celebrate Easter, plain and simple.  But like Christmas, the true meaning of Easter gets overshadowed by capitalism and cute figures (maybe an oversimplification on my part but it gets the point across).  And sometimes we do it in the name of our children, to do something with them that Sunday and partake in the cute figures and an Easter egg hunt, et c.  But if we do this and it overshadows the reason we celebrate Easter Sunday, then this is how we celebrate in an errant way and it clearly affects our children in the process, teaching them how to celebrate Easter wrongly as well.  

But how do we celebrate in a right way?  It is connected to how we celebrate every Sunday. Every Sunday, we gather and remember the resurrection of Christ.  It seemed like the early Christians started meeting on the first day of the week instead of the last day (the sabbath), with it being in connection to the day Jesus rose from the dead.  When Pentecost came, the church met on the first day of the week, and the Spirit descended, and Spirit baptism became the mark of the church (Acts 2:1).  In Revelation, it seemed like there was a day known as the “Lord’s Day” to early Christians (Rev 1:10).  Paul even makes mention of an offering on the first day of the week (1 Cor 16:2).  The point: It seems that the early church met on the first day of the week instead of the last because Christ resurrected on the first day of the week marking their day of meeting as distinctly about Christ and specifically because he rose.  How did they celebrate? 1. Gathering together.  2. Word being read and preached.  3. The Lord’s Table/Communion.  4. Feasting. Notice a theme of togetherness?  How do we celebrate the resurrection?  Celebrating together-Fellowship.  Remembering and proclaiming the truth.  This included other good things too! (Like food!)  So, with Easter Sunday, but also every Sunday, this is how we are to celebrate.    

Go to church.  Fellowship.  Remember and proclaim the truth.  Teach it to your children.  Get together for more fellowship after.  Include food and/or other activities.  Just don’t let the truth of the Son of God rising from the dead get overshadowed!