An Easter People

As we walk into a church most any day throughout the year, we can correctly anticipate how the sanctuary will look:

Beautiful statuary.

Fine linens.

Lit candles.

The Body of Christ reposed in the tabernacle.

The absence of all these things on Good Friday is a stark difference from the norm.

Yet.

If Christ had not risen from the dead on that first Easter, our churches would not be decorated as they are through the year. Every Sunday would be another Good Friday, a day of repentance and atonement, rather than another Easter.

Let us reorient our lirturgical year, then. The starkness of Good Friday is not an emptying, but the norm. The glory of Easter and every Sunday which remembers it is not the norm, but a joy-filled influx of light, of grace, of hope.

We are an Easter people. God has filled our emptiness, brought light and hope and life and joy to our lives. He has restored Christ's presence to us, we who had so readily crucified him. Let us praise him without ceasing, for the marvelous thing he has done! Aleluia!