It’s the day after the day after Easter, and the chreasters have gone back into hiding until December.
“Chreasters” is the word a former pastor of mine called the people who only show up at church twice a year, on Christmas and Easter, the two most sacred days in the Christian year.
With the news coverage of Pope Francis’ death, I learned there is something called the Easter Octave, eight days during which Catholics continue the celebration of Christ’s resurrection. So I suppose it may be premature to say Easter is over and the chreasters have gone back into hiding, but you understand my point.
The thing is, as my current pastor said the other day, every day is “Easter Sunday.” The miracle of the Resurrection is not a once a year kind of celebration.
Back in 1873 a gentleman named Horatio G. Spafford, having lost his three daughters in an Atlantic shipwreck, wrote a poem that became a hymn about how, whatever life may throw at us, “It is well with my soul” because of Jesus’ sacrifice.
“My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,” Spafford wrote. “Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!”
Or, as another gentleman, named Charles Wesley, wrote in 1739, “Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!”
In the earliest days of the faith, Christians greeted one another by saying, “He is risen!” with the response, “He is risen indeed!”
Two days after Easter, or two weeks after Easter — heck, on the Fourth of July or any random date you can toss around — it behooves us to remember Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead.
He is risen, indeed!
