When you arrive at church on Sunday you might notice that the Easter banners are still on the wall.   You might also wonder to yourself, “why?”  My dear wife told me that I better explain it before folks just assume I’m lazy.

There are two reasons really.

1) Believe it or not there is a Christian Calendar or maybe more accurate would be that there’s a liturgical calendar.  That means that for much of the year we are in a “season” although some of the weeks are referred to as “ordinary time.”  This year, we are blessed to have seven weeks of Easter, running us all the way to Pentecost on May 24^th.  Maybe it is my mothers influence on how long to keep up Christmas decorations, but it just seems appropriate to me to keep the banners up through the entire Easter season.

2) Keeping the banners up goes along with what is becoming a bit of a theme.  This past Sunday I tried to emphasize that Easter affects us every day and eternally as well.  The salvation afforded to us by the risen Christ is not a one-day limited time offer that He is selling to the bare walls.  We generally only hear the phrase “He is risen” one day a year, Easter Sunday, but that phrase is true every day.  It is the reason as Peter spoke about in his first letter, that we have a living hope.  Our hope is alive, active and joyous, not stagnant and left in the past.  During the benediction last Sunday, I again invoked the words “Christ is risen, He is risen indeed!”  I was slightly amused when I looked at the Abingdon Worship Annual (a book to help pastors put worship services together) and it suggested for a benediction this coming Sunday, “Christ is risen.  Christ is risen indeed.  Christ is risen.  Christ is with us indeed.  Go to share this good news with the world!”

I admit that I do think about Easter much as I do Christmas and that is we seem so quick to leave it behind.  Join me over these next few weeks to let the Easter season run its full course and to continue to revel in the resurrection and the salvation afforded to us as a result.