Here we are, the day after the highest holy day of them all. I hope yours was wonderful.
Coming down from Easter is not unlike coming down from other adrenaline-charged days full of expectation and emotion – whether magical or tragic days. The day after you get home from youth camp. The day after graduation. The day after you have a baby, the day after a big birthday, the day after the big trip, the day after you get the call, the day after the funeral…
Our lives are fully punctuated by Days After.
What now? This huge horrible/wonderful thing has happened. Knowing what I know now, I need to figure out a new normal life. It’s time to integrate this new knowledge into my heart in a healthy way. It seems to me it takes the same soul-muscles to receive a miracle as it does a cancer diagnosis, so the day after Easter has some broad lessons to teach us.
Let’s look at what this day might have been like for Jesus’ friends, and for Jesus Himself.
The Disciples’ Day After
Jesus’ friends and disciples experienced an incredibly complex Day After Easter. Consider what they were trying to process all at once: their beloved Messiah suffered a brutal death. There was still much to grieve about what they witnessed, about what they did or didn’t do that Friday, what they did or didn’t see coming, how the crowd treated Him… Surely they spent the weekend in shock after a trauma of a lifetime. Then Mary brought the unbelievable news and they went from the lowest low to the highest high: He is risen! The miracle of a lifetime! How could it be?
The next forty days had to have been weirder than weird. Jesus was alive but in a new body that could walk through walls. He was there, but He wasn’t showing up very much. When He did show up, He didn’t do much explaining. Surely rumors and drama were swirling throughout the country. How do we explain it, what does it all mean, and what are we in the middle of, and what happens next? It was an awkward in-between period that would be followed by another awkward period between the ascension and Pentecost.
They had already won, but the work of their lives was just beginning, on the heels of death and life. They were replaying everything Jesus had told them, and it was all true, even though it still didn’t make sense. They didn’t see it coming because it didn’t look like what they thought it would. They didn’t fully understand. They could only see in part and now their eyes were open but the light was blindingly bright. Everything was different. To put it mildly, the disciples had to adjust. They changed; they believed. They made space in their lives and hearts for the Good News that Jesus conquered death. Honestly I’m impressed they didn’t spontaneously combust on Easter Monday.
Jesus’ Day After
So what did Jesus do the day after Easter?
It’s unclear which day it was, but one morning after his big Easter Sunday appearances, we find Him hanging out on the beach building a fire to cook breakfast for Himself and His friends. He didn’t say one single word to them about what He’d been through. This strikes me as extraordinarily ordinary! I absolutely love this about Him. What now, after saving the world? Get up and make breakfast. I can’t get over it.
As we grow in faith and living, we have a lot of opportunities to adjust and expand our capacity for these kinds of Days After. It’s necessary work if we want to have an integrated faith. When something really bad happens, how do we wake up the next day and keep going? When something really good happens, we’ve got to do the same. We can’t let it define our identity or feed our ego or control the narrative. But we can set it in the proper place in our hearts and ask God to help us understand the truth about Him, the world and ourselves. Apparently making breakfast – putting one foot in front of the other – is an important part of this journey!
Awareness
I think awareness is key to this process. Awareness, the first step to all growth. Do your own inventory and become more fully aware of what’s been going on in your life and what you’ve been trying to process. What new messy middle are you in right now? It’s the day after what? And how do you feel about that?
Space
Allowing space to re-adjust also seems really important. Acknowledging both rejoicing and grieving on the day after Easter is not weakness; it’s wisdom. We can’t skip over anything; denial is not our friend. Giving yourself grace to come down gently from a big day is wisdom. If you could go back and give yourself advice on the day after that youth retreat or the day after your father died, what would you say? How might that wisdom apply to today? What space and grace do you need? What needs permission to grow inside of you?
New Wineskins
When we’re given something new – whether difficult or delightful or both – it takes time to incorporate it into our hearts and habits. That’s the point of it, I believe: to expand our capacity. That’s the long game. Instead of trying to maintain the adrenaline high or blaming from the pit, we can begin folding in this new knowledge about God and ourselves. For example, can we love God and be mad at Him at the same time? Yes. And that means that God is big enough. Can we rejoice that our loved one is no longer suffering, and grieve how much we miss them at the same time? Yes. Love is big enough for all of it. Can we believe in God and doubt His goodness at the same time? Yes. He can handle our doubts and questions, and we don’t have to have a “strong faith” all the time. This is hard work that brings us closer to a mature spirituality and a whole heart. God wants us to grow up fully into His love.
The wonderful news is that Jesus is well-versed in all of the above. He isn’t only in the resurrection, He’s also in the suffering, and in the ordinary. He became a human so that He could relate to us in our weakness. He can show us how to navigate the day after. He’s very good at giving us new wineskins when we need them. A new wineskin means a more flexible heart to hold this new knowledge we carry that demand more space because it’s no long either/or; it’s both/and.
Mid-life is teaching me that all of life is an awkward in-between – a brutiful mix of questions, celebrations, heartbreaks, breakthroughs, breakdowns, ordinary, supernatural, hellos, and goodbyes. We have already won, and the work of our life is just beginning. By design we still get to live in this fallen world for 90-ish years of awkward inbetween, with a Companion who knows how.
May you continue to fold the Resurrection into your day-afters, friends.