Easter Sunday has come and gone but Easter is not over ….. Right

It’s not over if we pay any attention to the church calendar which calls the 50 days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost “Eastertide,” or the “Season of Easter,” or “The Great 50 Days of Easter.”  This can be a season to rejoice in the resurrection, proclaim resurrection and attempt to get a little better grasp on what it could mean to live as a people of the resurrection.

Last Sunday verses of Psalm 118 were read in many churches and some churches will read parts of that Psalm this Sunday.  Verse 24 goes,

‘This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Certainly that is an appropriate sentiment for Easter Day.  Maybe it can characterize the days of Eastertide and beyond for us.  Could you begin each day of Eastertide with those words as your prayer for the day before you?

Recently I came across these words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,

“The beginning of the day should not be oppressed with besetting concerns for the day’s work. At the threshold of the new day stands the Lord who made it. All the darkness of the night retreats  before the clear light of Jesus Christ. All unrest, all impurity, all care and anxiety flee before him. Therefore at the beginning of the day, let the first thought and the first word belong to him to whom our whole life belongs.”

Could our “first thought and … first word” of the day be, “This is the day the Lord has made”?