How Jesus’ Resurrection Matters on a Typical Tuesday

Holy Week is behind us. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Silent Saturday, Resurrection Sunday and then begins a regular week. What now? Do we leave Easter behind until next April? Is Jesus’ resurrection significant the other 51 weeks of the year?

His resurrection is the essential unique crux of our faith. Without Jesus’ sacrificial death, resurrection and ascension our Christianity is only as valuable as another belief system. Without Jesus overcoming the grave we’d be striving to model our lives around a really good man.  

Because of the resurrection we have continual open fellowship with God. There are no hoops to jump through each time we communicate with Him. There’s no cowering and hiding our faces; Jesus took all sorrow and shame with Him on the cross. He made our way clear to our triune God. Because of Jesus we’re free to worship and commune with our Father every hour of the day.  

I’m on a mission to live in euphoric awareness of The Resurrection the other 364 days. I don’t want to forget it this time. I want to recall what He has done to affect even my most intimate moments when I sit alone with my pain and fear. I don’t want to go into a normal Monday and Tuesday and forget how this historic event changes my life each day.

I recently read portions of my old journals from the 1980’s. At the time, I was a single mom of two; a precocious five-year-old boy and a severely intellectually disabled two-year-old daughter. I had a job in one town as a pre-school teacher and a position as kindergarten and pre-school director in another town 30 minutes away. Here’s what I wrote:

Hope is the answer! I can walk through my hard places if I have hope. Where can I find hope? There are brilliant people who understand how a human heart functions and others who’ve explored the vast universe created by God but unknown to humans. Skilled politicians and leaders have smart minds and strive to improve our country. But that’s not where I find hope. My hope is in the Lord because of His unfailing love.   

Your unfailing love O Lord is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.

Psalm 36:5

We are His house if we hold on to courage and the hope of which we boast.

Hebrews 3:6

I will be glad and rejoice in your unfailing love. For you have seen my troubles and you care about the anguish of my soul.

Psalm 31:7

If my hope is in Him, His eye is on me and He delights in me. I love Him—He has called me into His purpose. Everything I encounter works for my good and for His glory.

We hope in God because He raised Jesus from the dead and He has promised to resurrect our mortal bodies. When we see Jesus we will be like Him. We hope in God’s word. Abraham hoped against all hope and received the promise from the Father. Jeremiah prayed to the Lord and acknowledged ‘nothing is too hard for Thee’.

When we lack hope we should pray for each other and encourage with God’s words.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace so you trust in Him and so you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13

My own words penned so many years ago encourage me today. I walked through one of the most difficult times of my life, grasping tightly to a real hope; not just empty words. He will never leave his kids; He will never forsake us, even in the darkest moments of our lives. Our hope in Him stands the tests of time and difficulty. We must never forget the actual resurrection event that happened on a real day in history. The event that forever gives us everything we need to walk through whatever comes our way.

I confess, in my ordinary Tuesdays, I sometimes forget the supernatural power He died to give us. The same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives inside me—how could I forget? My life on earth is a vapor and I’ll live forever with Him. Lord, please help me to remember this every moment, especially in the hardest places.

You were once at odds with God, wicked in your ways and evil in your minds; but now He has reconciled you in His body–in His flesh through His death– so that He can present you to God holy, blameless and totally free of imperfection as long as you stay planted in the faith. So don’t venture away from what you have heard and taken to heart: the living hope of the good news that has been announced to all creation under heaven and has captured me, Paul, as its servant.

Colossians 1:21-23 The Voice

Selah.