50 Days of Easter - Day 3

Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem
photo by Sara Holben, May 2009

So how did it get to be "Day 3" in the 50 Days of Easter already??  For those of you who may have read the PCC April newsletter, you may know that I gave a challenge and made a personal commitment to observe the 50 Days of Easter.  Here's what I wrote:

            Well it’s all over … Easter Sunday that is.  But that doesn’t mean that Easter is over.  Because in the “church calendar” Easter is not just a day, it is a season. A season of 50 days actually – stretching from Easter Sunday until Pentecost Sunday (which this year is on May 19).

            So let the celebration of Easter begin!! 

            No, I’m not suggesting 50 days of new Easter dresses, egg hunts, chocolate eggs and jelly beans (although . 

            Instead, the season of Easter invites us to take time to reflect on and delight in the Resurrection.  So what does that mean for us? What does a 50-day celebration of Easter look like?

           The Easter season is not just for the Sundays after Easter.  Easter is also for the Mondays to Saturdays of our lives as well.  So just as we often take on new disciplines for Lent, I want to invite you to take on a 50-day celebration of the new life we are given in Christ.  Choose to do one thing each day that can help you focus on the new life that continues to break into our world:

• ·      Listen to music that feeds your soul
• ·      Read a book that might do the same
• ·      Take a stroll instead of a walk – no goal to be set in time or distance, simply enjoy a walk for the sake of a walk and listen to the sounds of God’s world around you
• ·      Using the words of Psalm 103:1 (“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless God’s holy name”) … start a blessings journal:  at the end of each day, simply write down the things for which you were thankful that day.
• ·      Maybe you started something in Lent you want to continue … keeping silence for part of the day? Reading a daily devotion? Committing to being in worship each Sunday?
• What else would you add to this list?  How would you "practice resurrection"?

And then I added this commitment:   To help keep the 50 days of Easter I will be posting a brief “something” (message, thought, poem, photo … who knows!) on the blog site for PCC – find us at http://www.backporchnotes.blogspot.com.

And here it is, DAY 3 into the 50 days, and this is my first posting.  I guess we all need to learn to practice resurrection!!  

       So let me start by simply giving you a link to a youtube clip on "Easter Is Coming" that comes from Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, MN.  I know, Easter SUNDAY has come and gone, but Easter is still coming!  And it's one my favorites.

       Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c2inXKD6PI

            Come join the conversation – and let the celebration begin!  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia.