Now that Resurrection Sunday has concluded, the average
person probably thinks to the civic holidays of Summer (Memorial Day,
Independence Day, Labor Day) as the next highlights on the calendar, and
Christmas as the next big religious event.
However, for the historic Church, the day that we English-speakers call
Easter was really just the beginning of about 2 months of feasts and festivals
remembering major events in the post-Resurrection life of Jesus and the birth
of the Christian Church.
We just began to celebrate the historic fact that after Jesus
died on Friday afternoon, He rose to life again on Sunday morning, because Easter
Sunday actually serves as merely the kick-off to an eight-week celebration of
the Resurrection. The 8 weeks represent
the “8th Day” of the New Creation which is promised in Scripture and
initiated in the resurrection of Jesus, and many of the readings for these
Sundays show the events in which Jesus appeared to his disciples (Luke 24, John
20-21), other eyewitnesses, and even a crowd of hundreds (1 Corinthians 15)
40 days into this Easter season is the Feast of the Ascension, observing the
day 40 days after the Resurrection when, while Jesus was talking with His
disciples, Jesus began to be lifted up, and a cloud hid Him from the sight of
the disciples. Other New Testament
passages speak of Jesus as presently being ascended into Heaven and that He is
“seated at the right hand of God the Father…” as Christians confess in the
Apostles’ Creed.
Finally, on the 50th day after the Resurrection,
the disciples appeared in Jerusalem, proclaiming the resurrected Christ as the
fulfillment of Old Testament prophesy in a miraculous event where they were
understood by pilgrims of numerous languages and homelands, marking the birth of
Church by the Baptism of 3000 people, which is celebrated by Christians as
Pentecost.
Before Jesus died, He had promised His disciples that after
He had risen, He would send the Holy Spirit to guide them and remind them of
the things He had said (John 14-16), and just before He ascended, He again
promised to send the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:8).
Through the Church, born on Pentecost, He fulfills these promises, which
the rest of the New Testament urges us to seek out in the proclamation of
Scripture, in Baptism, and in the Lord’s Supper, occurring in the gathering of
other Christians, and through which the Holy Spirit causes people to trust in
Jesus.
Thanks be to God for this rich observance of our Lord’s
resurrected life in the heritage of the Church, which we continue to receive,
even nearly 20 centuries after the original events.
