LIFE AFTER EASTER

For many Christians, faith comes to a grinding halt after Easter.... What else is there? And yet ... the great promise of the resurrection has yet to be fulfilled. And the early Christian Community clearly understood this. They also understood the tremendous implications of Psalm 127:1: "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain."

And it is instructive to note the actions of this infant Community immediately following the resurrection. Rather than taking matters into its own hands, getting organized and venturing forth, it has withdrawn to wait and to pray. It is now up to the risen Christ to make good on his promise to bestow the Spirit and to restore the kingdom to Israel.

In a sense, this is what prayer is — the bold, even arrogant effort on the part of the Community to hold God to his promises. In praying "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done," we pray that God will be true to himself and give us what has been promised. Prayer is thus boldness born out of confidence in the faithfulness of God to the promises he makes, confidence that God will be true to himself. What may appear as insolence by the Church in prayer that we shall receive the Spirit, the kingdom, power, and restoration is, in fact, the deepest humility, the Church's humble realization that only God can give what the Church most desperately needs.

It is popular to refer to Pentecost as the birthday of the Church, and there is much truth in that assumption. But it is also true that Easter and Pentecost are an indissoluble unity. For the story of Pentecost must be read within the context of the 24th chapter of Luke's Gospel: the risen Lord was made "known to them in the breaking of bread" (24:35); he "opened their minds to understand the scriptures" (24:32); and he promised to give them the same power that moved him, telling them to "stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high" (24:49). At Pentecost, the power of God, made manifest at the resurrection of Christ, is bestowed upon the people of God.

Originally, in the Church's celebration of the liturgical year, Easter and Pentecost were more closely linked. Today, unfortunately, the average congregation may experience these events as separate phenomena, thus missing the truth that the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost is but a further explication of the wonder of Easter Sunday.

And so, for the next six Sundays, in a manner similar to the season of Lent, the Church seeks to understand the meaning of resurrection ... and prepares itself for the glorious fulfillment of Easter on the Day of Pentecost.