Easter Monday

The day after Easter may seem a bit anticlimactic to church folks who have been engaged in the weeks-long Lenten preparation, and especially the busy Holy Week services. It is well known that the Sunday after Easter traditionally records a marked decrease in worship attendance from the week before. It's the Sunday on the Christian calendar that liturgical churches designate as Low Sunday! There's a bit of a letdown, perhaps, after Easter. We have a similar experience following Christmas, but the after-Easter blah is not the result of the frenetic shopping and packed social calendars of that holiday season.

Breaking the Lenten "fast" may be a part of this, for those who really do fast, though it would seem this would be a cause for continued celebration. I think it's more just a sense of relief, especially among busy pastors. It's a time to rest, relax. It's a good thing, really, from that perspective.

Contrast that feeling, though, with what must have been the emotional state of the first disciples after the first Easter. Easter Monday for them wasn't dull, it wasn't anticlimactic, it wasn't a time to kick back. There were still many unanswered questions, a mystery as yet uninvestigated. The Bible teaches that Christ appeared to the disciples several times during a forty-day period after the resurrection. Each time was both terrifying and reassuring to them, no doubt. Ultimately they were able to understand what is beyond ordinary mortal comprehension: that God had raised Jesus from death, and that those who believe in him shall likewise have eternal life in him.

There may be a sense of letdown after all the activities leading up to Easter. But that doesn't discount the abiding conviction and assurance that the Good News of Easter lasts forever!