Therefore, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).

It can be rather hard to know exactly what to do with Easter.  Christmas is so much easier: stars, manger, magi, shepherds, people we can relate to (Mary, Joseph) … Santa, fir trees, presents, sleigh bells tingling, chestnuts roasting, cookies and did I mention presents?

Know any good “Easter carols”?  Why is that?

Easter at first seems more about absence: an empty tomb.  The mysterious presence of Jesus, crucified and risen; recognizable and yet different in ways we can’t fathom.  The shepherds at least got going to Bethlehem; The disciples that first Easter morning and in the days immediately after weren’t going, they were looking for places to hide!

But their fear did not last forever; not even for very long.  Easter lasts long.  

We’ve spent the last month immersing ourselves in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul’s great “resurrection chapter.”  The verse at the top of this page is where Paul lands his resurrection magnum opus: “Therefore, be steadfast … abounding in the work of the Lord … your labor is not in vain.”

What is the “work,” the “labor”?  I want to suggest that it is to live “in the resurrection” even as we await its final fulfillment.  To live now according to the promised future that God has guaranteed by raising Jesus from the dead, the future that is already leaking into our now through the pinhole of the empty tomb.

All the problems the Corinthian believers were having, all that Paul has been admonishing and correcting them about, all the ways he has been teaching and redirecting how they look at and live their lives through the first fourteen chapters of 1 Corinthians, all those problems flowed from not living, here and now, in the reality of Christ’s cross and resurrection.  

To live in this way entails the hard work, the ongoing labor, of learning how to live according to the wisdom of the cross instead of the wisdom of the world; of living as members of a living body instead of an institution or empire; of learning to mark and measure time according to eternity instead of the “times and seasons” dictated by Rome (or Amazon, or the sports or political “calendars”); of living in the more excellent way of love instead of the ways of self-absorption and self-seeking; of learning and practicing a “life in the Spirit” that is about how we lay down our lives for one another in love instead of fighting about whose spiritual gifts are the best ones.

Sometimes, even more so than at Christmas, Easter can be a once-and-done, we’re-moving-on day.  We celebrate what has our heart’s attention and allegiance.  May God help us to celebrate, and to give our full allegiance to what Easter really means: God in Christ by the Spirit is making all things new.

Easter is forever: here; now; always.

Jesus, we’re familiar with the story, but less so with the reality; we have the outlines but aren’t yet seeing the completed painting.  Help us to keep moving, to keep following, to become steadfast and immovable and abounding in your work, the continuing hard labor of becoming a community of your cross and resurrection!  Amen.