It’s the day after Easter. Yesterday at church there were flowers, triumphant hymns, shouts of “Hallelujah!” Today comes as a letdown. Time to go back to work. How I’d like to prolong the splendor of Easter!
One year I tried. There’s a retreat house 40 miles north of us where I was sure I could maintain the Easter spirit. I drove up there that Monday, took my suitcase to the room assigned to me and went into the chapel to try to recapture the exaltation of the day before.
And all I could think about were the half-done projects on my desk and the car inspection due that week. I stayed on in that serene setting for two days. There were worship services, silence, beauty. But on my mind were only unwritten letters and the torn lampshade that needed replacing.
By Wednesday I was back at my desk. There were 43 new e-mails waiting and the phone never stopped ringing and the plumber who was going to work on the sink couldn’t come. And it was there, in the workaday world, that I was overwhelmed with the sense of Jesus’ risen presence.
“Where’ve you been?” I could almost hear Him say. “I’ve been waiting here for you.”
The apostle Peter was wiser than I. After the awestruck reunion with his resurrected Lord in the room with the locked door, Peter did not linger in that sacred space. He did not run again to the empty tomb, trying to recapture that moment of moments. A fisherman, he went back to his job of fishing. And there is where Jesus waited for him, preparing a meal on the lakeside for the hungry laborers before sending them out to carry the Easter message to the world.
Risen Lord, show me the difference Your Resurrection makes, today and every day.
