It was the most perfect day ever. It was unexpected but gladly received. It wasn’t the day of my wedding, or the day of my child’s birth. It wasn’t even really a special day. It was the day after Easter. There are many days in our lives we can look back on. Those days that will forever be with us. For me, this was one of those days.
I spent half the day on drugs, like I spent many of those days. But this day was different. There was something in the air I couldn’t explain. From the sun glistening off the dew of the grass in the morning to the white fluffy clouds slowly meandering by. This day was perfect.
Surely this day had special meaning in history. I had to find out. As I looked into it, I found out that not much happened. It was the day after Easter. It was the day after the disciples of Jesus found out that in the midst of their dashed hopes in a Messiah that God had other plans. The day of the resurrection is exciting, surprising, and hope filled. The day after is…well, the day after.
Not much is recorded about the day after. However, for all of us, life is lived in the day after. We may have our moments of the resurrected Jesus stepping into our world, but the day after always comes. It is the day we reflect over the grand miracle of Jesus showing up in our lives while we now actually live it. Life in the day after becomes a little bit more mundane. Yet as much as we want normalcy, after the resurrection nothing can be the same again.
But the day after is perfect. It is the symbolism of the day that now Jesus is alive and walks with us through our lives. It is the day after embracing the resurrection and is now a way of doing life entirely differently.
The day after represents the nearness of His presence and the continual offering of His grace and mercy in our lives. It means that we now step into the mundane with an entirely new identity as belonging to Him. The day after is not returning to life as we knew it before. It is walking out an empowered and redeemed life.
For me at the age of 18, I couldn’t grasp all of this. Now that it has been 18 years since I have said yes to this gift of life, the day after is almost more exciting. It means that at any moment Jesus can step in. It also means that at any moment, life will never be the same again.