Road Trip!

I call the week after Easter the “post-Easter euphoria.”  It’s mostly because Lent and Holy Week—in particular—seem the busiest times for pastors.  And now that I have school-aged children, it just so happens that Spring Break is also Holy Week—which means, of course, that my kids spend most of their Spring Break father-less.  So for the last few years, we've been practicing an Easter Monday Adventure.  It’s a hold-over from my time serving churches in small communities where taking a break necessitated “getting out of town.”  So, in the post-Easter euphoria we leave town. 

I feel like we’re in good company.  Because by one gospel story or another that’s exactly what happens for Jesus’ followers—at least, that’s what’s SUPPOSED to happen.  The message of the angel on Easter morning is: “go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” 

From Jerusalem of the cross and grave back to the shores of the Sea of Galilee—where the disciples first met Jesus—is about as far as it is for my family and I to get to the seashore from our home in suburban Philadelphia.  I imagine the disciples and those following Jesus would have appreciated the Atlantic City Expressway in their day, too! (OK, maybe not).  But my point is that come post-Easter Monday, they were on the road, too.  The post-resurrection stories differ in the details, but my best bet is that at some point, in the days following Easter, Jesus’ followers “went home”—to Galilee and the water. 

It’s a bit anti-climactic.  Mark’s gospel ends with the stark reality: “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”  The gospels end without any real resolution beyond Jesus being raised.  There are some appearance stories, but then what? 

For me, Easter Sunday simply gives way to the “Post Easter Euphoria.”  Followers get on the road again, and Jesus continues to show up.  Us too. 

For some, this seems surprising.  When we see Jesus die, we aren’t ever quite ready for the stark reality that he lives again.  I’m thinking about the disciples on the road to Emmaus—whom Jesus surprises in the breaking of the bread in Luke; or the disciples in John’s story when Jesus simply walks through the closed, locked, doors. 

But for me, I seem more eager to discover where Jesus is showing up in my world.  And the road seems the perfect place.  Where someone else makes a meal for us.  Where we bask in the beauty of the natural world.  Where our family has time together.  Where we learn something new.  Where we find interesting things.  Where we share in God’s love. 

Where are you seeing Jesus in his resurrection?  What kind of journey out of your normal routine gives way to our Lord’s presence in your midst?  And do you ever go and tell others of us, that we can see him, too?