Easter Tuesday

Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!  Two whole days ago.

Easter is great, but there’s the Tuesday after Easter, when the resurrection is two days old.  Life continues in a world with dirt, and money, and lunch to eat.  So what then?  There’s this every day world that Jesus is still walking around in.  After all, he didn’t ascend in that billowing, holy cloud for another 40 days after he broke out of the tomb.

In the meantime, he walked around here, and ate fish.

He could have ascended that Easter Sunday.  The resurrection would have been no less affective.  But he stayed.  He ate a lot.  He’s often seen cooking fish, or eating fish, or asking, “Do you have anything to eat?”  Perhaps this raising yourself from the dead business can cause a mighty hunger.  I’m not sure.  I’ve never been resurrected.

But Jesus was, and he lingered a while for a reason.  Perhaps he wanted to give Thomas the benefit of the doubt, and let Tom see him that following Sunday.  Perhaps he just enjoyed being here. Perhaps at least part of the reason was to communicate something.  In his death, he told us he was with us in our deepest misery.  In his rising to life, he told us he was with us in our most profound joy.  Maybe in the sticking around for a while before the ascension, he was telling us that he’s around for all the stuff in between.

He was here for Easter Sunday... and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and on and on.  He was here.  With us, like a welcome guest who keeps saying, “Well, I really should get going,” until you’ve laughed yourselves all the way to one in the morning.

But he’s with us, from Easter Monday to Boring Thursday.  And especially, it would seem, for the food.  I knew there was a reason I liked him.