Easter Hangover

I have an Easter hangover. Unlike the other, unpleasant kind of day-after payback that we suffer for over-indulging, this hangover is distinctly joyous.

This past week was, of course, Holy Week. It ended with a service of Tenebrae, where Jesus lay, dead in the tomb, and the new week started with the startling good news of his Resurrection. Life conquers death. The heavenly virtues of kindness, generosity, forgiveness, grace and mercy are demonstrated to be more powerful that those of human, physical, material contrivance.

The crowd Sunday was tremendous, both large and energetic. There was an infectious vibrancy in the air. The Spirit was surely moving at Shiloh Church. I suppose that any person who attended service here felt exactly that of which I write. It was electric.

I write on the Monday after Easter, sitting in my relatively quiet office, feeling both the sense of excitement from yesterday and the need to return to the mundane tasks of the church after Easter. Worship must be written, Bible studies need to be planned, staff needs to be organized, this coming Sunday's three message need  to be built, phones need to be answered and multiple questions need to be addressed.

There remains something in the air, however. There is a vibration, just out of reach of the senses. Even in the course of the mundane, weekly effort of church work, the spirit continues to enliven the multiple settings of ministry and mission. It moves. It infuses. It flows.

Today, the feeling is palpable. It is overt, obvious. Hopefully, the vibrancy of that Easter spirit continues to move in and through even the mundane work to which we are called. Maybe it can show in the smallest of acts, in the humblest ministries, in the most hidden missions, and shine with a light so bright that it overcomes the darkness that sometimes settles around us.

Do you feel it? Is it moving in and through you as well? I sincerely hope that your Easter hangover is as pleasing and powerful as mine is today, and I hope that it shows in every word that your speak and in every act that you take. Let the world see that life has overcome death, even in us.