How Do You Practice New Life & Easter When the World’s On Edge? How Easter Is Just Beginning & is the Real New Year

I water the Easter lilies on Day 3 of Eastertide. 

I confess:

Have I sometimes been far too quick to put away all the celebration decorations, because maybe somewhere, somehow, there’s been a part of me that considers what we’ve been celebrating is more of an optional decoration in our life – instead of a reality to be sustained and actually lived? But the whole world feels a bit on edge, and now, maybe more than ever, how do we practice new life — as the center of the practice of our fatih?

“Resurrection Sunday is more than a day to celebrate, resurrection power is away of life to be sustained on all the days after.” 

Resurrection Sunday is more than a day to celebrate; resurrection power is away of life to be sustained on all the days after. 

And as I make Resurrection buns on Monday morning, and again on Tuesday morning — because isn’t the tomb still empty? — as I leave the Easter Tree up, as I commit to sustaining the season of Eastertide, that 50-day season from Resurrection Sunday to Pentecost Sunday, I keep thinking of what Mary, and the disciples, said on Resurrection Sunday: “I have seen the Lord.”

The angel may have announced what has become the traditional Easter greeting, “He was risen,” but this year, instead of only offering the traditional greeting as my response, “He is risen indeed,” I kept adding what the women too said: “I have seen the Lord.” Is that what the real disciples of Jesus always say: “We have seen the Lord”  — because a whole new Life is rising up in them. 

An angel may notify: He is risen. 

But it’s only the true disciples who can testify: I have seen the Lord!  

Notifications can get turned off and ignored— but it’s only what we have actually seen –that we can never unsee.  

And when we have truly seen the Lord in the world, the world is more likely to truly see the Lord in us — and does the world need anything more right about now?

““He is risen” is more like a press release from a divine, angelic herald.  “I have seen the Lord” is an actual personal release from the hopeless dark. “

That’s what I keep returning to on Day 3 of Eastertide, that season that marks those sacred days when Jesus looks straight into the faces of His disciples, so they see the Way, the Truth, and the Life Himself and live now a whole new way. 

And isn’t the reality that:

Easter makes us the eye-witness people, the encounter people, the endlessly rising people!

As I wash dishes, change laundry, haul hay, feed sheep, that echo of Mary’s words (Jn 18:25), of the disciples’ words (Jn 20:25): “I have seen the Lord… I have seen the Lord… I have seen the Lord.” 

Eyes that have genuinely seen the Lord … genuinely see everything different in the world. 

“And when we have truly seen the Lord in the world, the world is more likely to truly see the Lord in us — and does the world need anything more right about now? .”

Greeting each other with news that He is risen… is not the same as literally living the news –  that we have personally seen Him, and He’s living and alive in us, so that our hope’s rising, so that our love’s rising, our grace is rising, our commitment is rising, our faithfulness is rising, so others can now genuinely see how the life of Jesus is rising in us.

“He is risen” is more like a press release from a divine, angelic herald.  “I have seen the Lord” is an actual personal release from the hopeless dark. 

“He is risen indeed” is indeed, more like just a news account. 

“I have seen the Lord” is an intimate encounter that makes you literally new within. 

“There’s no rising to a new you, until you come face to face with the resurrection power of the risen Lord. “

A woman had turned to me on the Saturday eve before Resurrection Sunday and she says this, wide-eyed and smiling:

“It just struck me right now – for the rest of my life, the Saturday before Easter is always going to be my New Year’s Eve …. and Resurrection Sunday, from now on for me, is always going to be my New Year’s Day.” 

There’s no new you unless you stand before the empty tomb, and there’s no new you unless you too can say, like the women at the empty tomb, I have seen the Lord.

Every day that we can say:“I have seen the Lord, I have seen the Lord” – is when we will see real change in us. 

Wherever you encounter an empty tomb to old ways of being is where you can finally experience the resurrection power and hope of a completely new and fulfilling life. 

There’s no rising to a new you, until you come face to face with the resurrection power of the risen Lord. 

And the reality is: When Jesus walked out of that tomb for you, He came to bring you more than just a new way of life – He came to give you actual life.

Apart from the risen Jesus living in you, there is no real life.

Unless we have seen the Lord today, we haven’t seen The Way for this day. The wise are the see-ers. Where there are no daily see-ers of the Lord, there is no wisdom.

It’s not that we were living before we met the resurrected Lord, and now we experience new life – it’s actually that before we met the risen Jesus we were the walking dead, and now we are actually alive, now we finally living, now we are fully living –  because the One who is Life is living within and rising in us. 

“Looking comes first,” is what C.S. Lewis said, which is to say: seeing comes first, seeing comes first in our change, in our transformation, in our new life, it is seeing that comes first in our rebirth.  Which is precisely why the first words that Mary and the disciples speak after the resurrection was not merely a statement of the fact of His rising, but ultimately a testament of the first act of rebirth: “We have seen the Lord.”

“We need a baptism of clear seeing. We desperately need seers who can see through the mist,” the singular, prophetic voice and pastor, A.W. Tozer urged. Which is to say: The wise are the see-ers. Where there are no daily see-ers of the Lord, there is no wisdom.

Unless we are daily see-ers of the Lord, we have no wisdom for the day.

Unless we have seen the Lord today, we haven’t seen The Way — His Way— for this day.

Outside my workroom window, a robin’s weaving a curl of a nest out of dry things, new life resurrecting out of dead things.

As I wash all the windows along that side of the house, begin another layer of spring cleaning, I keep thinking of the real New Year beginning in me, with this commitment to daily seeing the Lord — in His Word, in worship, in the world — and I keep returning to this question that frames Eastertide, that fuels this living out Easter:  

Because Jesus took a step out of that tomb toward you, to see you: Where is He calling you to take one step of faith toward Him, to more fully see Him? 

“God held nothing back for you – why would you withhold anything now from Him? “

Because Jesus walked out of that tomb toward you: Where is He moving into you, so you can walk now in obedience toward Him, straight out of death and into real life — so others might see Him more fully in you? 

If you have really seen the Lord — how do you now see people, how do you now see new ways to love the unlovely, how do you now see new ways to serve the hurting, new ways to welcome the stranger, new ways to care for those on the margins, new ways to live given, new ways to lay your life down — so Jesus can continue to rise in you?

Because the tomb is empty, where is resurrection power now filling me, to empty me of lesser loves, so I can rise to real life in Christ, so the upside down ways of Christ might be seen in me?

Because Jesus took a step out of that tomb toward you, to see you: Where is He calling you to take one step of faith toward Him, to more fully see Him? 

Cut to the quick, I write these questions down in my journal, undone and remade… and this is the beginning of my new year… new me.

When Jesus came riding into Jerusalem, those disciples thought that Jesus came to finally take over the empire — but when Jesus walked out of that Garden Tomb, it’s the real disciples who finally understand that Jesus came to take over our hearts.… and give us new hearts.

God held nothing back for you – why would you withhold anything now from Him? 

Easter is now only just beginning. The living of resurrection life is only now just beginning.

The work rooms windows washed, I can see clearly now, see this nest of new life opening up now.

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