April 8, 2007 – Easter Sunday

C & E Christians

Read: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, Luke 5:1-11

Many of us have heard of C & E Christians – people who only attend worship services at Christmas and Easter.

I'm the kind who seems to be at church pretty much any time there's a worship service going on, and I've never really understood the C & E variety. “After all,” my thinking went, “if Christmas and Easter are important enough to bring you to church, wouldn’t you want to get more of that stuff on all the other days too?”

The other day, Bob was preaching on today's scriptures, and mentioned Christmas, Easter, and C & E types. I suddenly felt I had gained an insight on the topic. Maybe the reason they show up on those days is because we really talk about Jesus on those days. It's as though we use those special days as bait, but the “fish” have caught on that it's not going to be as good on a “Regular Old Sunday” as it is on Christmas or Easter. And often they’re right.

Maybe if we made every Sunday another Easter (or an extra Christmas), we would find them filling the pews, eager for more. It's like the song by Avery and Marsh (caution: it's in one of those song books from the 70's), “Every Morning is Easter Morning, From Now On.” If we lived and worshiped with that in mind – as if that were really true – imagine how exciting our lives could be.

Maybe that's the key – it's great to have special days and times to celebrate in special ways, but our whole lives should be made of worship and praise and celebration of the God who came to us that first Christmas, who lived with us, and then died for us that first Good Friday (nobody's favourite), but who then rose on that first Easter.

Ebenezer Scrooge may well have had it right - at the end of the story, that is. Sure, I may take down some of the Christmas decorations; I may put away the Easter stuff, but I'm going to try to keep Christmas - and Easter - in my heart and my life every day.

I think I won’t mind being a C & E Christian.

Father, thank you for sending your son, Jesus, to us at Christmas so He could live with us. Thank you even more that He was willing to die for us on Good Friday. Thank you most that He rose again on Easter to give us eternal life with you in Heaven.
The Lord is Risen Indeed!
Amen

Charlie van Becelaere