Easter Sunday

Happy Easter everyone.

One of the topics I am thinking about writing a post or series about is why it is important to go to church on a weekly basis. It seems like especially my generation has come to view church or organized religion as something optional. But I know my generation is not the only one that believes this, as shown by the amount of "Christmas and Easter Christians" our churches had today. Why is it that churches are the fullest on Easter Sunday?  

In thinking about this question and wondering why do we go to church, I have to come to an initial thought. We go to church to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and no other Sunday is this celebrated more than on the annual Sunday we believe Jesus actually rose from the dead.  We feel and think that we must be at church on Easter Sunday because this is the holiest day of the year and how can we celebrate it alone?  This question is exactly right, how can this be celebrated alone!? The single most important event in history cannot be celebrated in any everyday ordinary type of way.  It deserves more than a moment's pause before breakfast, or a meditative walk, or even a solitary time of prayer.  

Jesus' resurrection provides the means for our own resurrection and the restoration of all creation, an act so huge that we can neither fully comprehend it or fully celebrate it.  Yet try we must and that is one of the reasons why we gather on Easter.

The Church however believes that every Sunday is a "mini-Easter." Each and every Sunday we gather on the very same day of the week that Jesus arose to celebrate a God who conquered death.  The questions again must be asked, how can we do honor and praise to an event so momentous as this by ourselves it our own little homes?  the answer is we can't, and that is why we gather together.  We gather as a people who believe and confess that Jesus is Lord and only through him has death and sin been conquered.  We gather to celebrate and worship a God who is so large and awesome in power, yet who also came in the person of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago.  Again, how that this be marked by ourselves in just a casual way?

Our motivation to go to church, must partially stem from the fact that in this act of gathering together we are able to worship and proclaim who God is and what God has done.  Certainly there are other ways to do this, but going to church is one of the best and provides a time of testimony to the world of who Jesus is.

The question I will leave us with is this, do our churches live up to this expectation?  If one of the most important reasons we go to church is because God deserves our worship and praise, are our churches provided a suitable setting and atmosphere appropriate to the task.  I know I've said disparaging things about "sanctinasiums" (gym/sanctuaries) before, but this is one of my problems with them.  We need a holy place set aside to provide the place solely for us to come and worship a God who deserves it.  We might not hear from God each and every Sunday, we might not be "blessed" by every sermon, and we might not like each song sung, but every Sunday the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, should be praised and the worship due God offered.  

May this be a challenge for us to approach every Sunday as a time of worship offered up to God.  How else can we stop and recognize all that God has done for us in and through Jesus Christ, the Risen Savior?