Today is the first day back to work, school or bread and butter for most people after having a well-deserved break over Easter. I'm back to University tomorrow, and already Easter seems like a distant memory, a fleeting thought.
So that's my question to you... When does Easter finish? When do you start to forget about Easter and start looking forward to the summer? Is it when you're back to work or school? Is it when you finish your last Easter egg?
When we get past Easter, and start heading toward summer, we tend to forget about everything even remotely related to Easter. When I say Easter, I don't mean a general concept or holiday. I mean the true meaning of Easter, the foundation of my faith as a follower of Jesus. The death. The resurrection. The hope and promise of salvation.
Every year at Easter, on Palm Sunday, you'll hear the great story about Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The donkey. The palm branches. The praise. Check it out...
A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
- Matthew 21 v 8 - 9
The message that Christ is King - our Lord and Saviour - is one that indeed we should be celebrating like the crowds in the passage. My problem is simply that I don't do this enough. You see, we kid ourselves into thinking that praise and worship are actions, but they're not. They're attitudes. They're lifestyles. Shouldn't we be living a lifestyle of praise as followers of Christ?
So as we move past Easter, and head towards summer, let's bring our palm branches with us.
Let's not save our palm branches just for Easter.
