Now What? Practicing Resurrection in an Apostolic Age

A Reflection on Living as Witnesses in the Fifty Days of Easter

Easter Sunday was dazzling—handbells ringing, lilies in full bloom, and the Church singing with full voice, Alleluia!  Christ is risen.

Then it felt delightful—almost like a bonus round—to come back the next Sunday: Kente cloth brightening the Nave, Thomas’s doubts tenderly met by the risen Christ, another glimpse of the beauty our Flower Guild so lovingly offered our parish this year, and a chance to sing a few Easter hymns that didn’t quite fit into those three Easter Day services.

But then…what?  The wider world has largely moved on—past the bunnies and chocolate and Easter baskets, but here we are, still very much in the Season of Easter…. and we keep doing this for how long, Fr. Ben?

It is true that while the world moves on, the Church does not.  We are given fifty days—fully seven weeks—to do something far more demanding than celebrating Easter Sunday: we are called to practice it.

The early Church understood this in a way that still startles some of us.  The apostles and the first disciples were not effective because they had polished arguments or institutional strength on their side.  There was no script, no centralized or resourced institutions or guidelines of any kind.  They had no support, really, either.  They had something far more compelling though: they had seen the risen Christ.  Their witness was not theoretical.  It was embodied, urgent, and impossible to ignore.

Scripture is clear about this. In the Acts of the Apostles, we are told that “with great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 4:33).  And St. Paul reminds the Church in Corinth that the Resurrection is not an abstract idea but a witnessed reality—“that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve…then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time” (1 Corinthians 15:5–6).  The apostolic ministry was built on this: we have seen the Lord.

Many scholars have noted just how rapidly Christianity spread in those first generations—faster than nearly any movement in human history.  And the reason, again and again, comes back to this: the power of resurrection witness.  People encountered men and women who were so utterly transformed by what they had seen and known that others could not help but listen.

That is apostolic ministry.

And here is the part we sometimes forget: that ministry did not end with them. It has been handed down—entrusted—to the Church. To us.

We are heirs of that same apostolic tradition. We are, each in our own way, heralds of the Resurrection.

Which raises an honest question: what do we do when we don’t feel very resurrection-y?

What do we do when life feels far more like Good Friday than Easter morning in this long 50-day season?  When grief enters or lingers, when anxiety presses in, when the world seems caught in cycles of death rather than new life?

The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is: we begin right there.

The Christian life is always lived in what theologians call the “already and not yet.” Christ has been raised. Death has been defeated. And yet, we still wait. We still long. We still proclaim, as we do in the Eucharistic prayer: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

We live in that middle space.

And it is precisely there that apostolic ministry takes shape.

To be a herald of the Resurrection does not mean pretending everything is fine. It does not mean forcing cheerfulness or denying pain.   It means proclaiming—sometimes with trembling voices—that even here, even now, God is at work bringing life out of death.

It means learning to see and name the small resurrections unfolding all around us: relationships being mended, hope rekindled, courage rediscovered, communities strengthened, weary souls finding rest.

At Christ Church, this is not abstract—it is deeply, concretely lived in the rhythms of worship, service, and care:

It looks like stepping up together and throughout the summer to feed hundreds of children through the MUST Ministries Summer Lunch Program—children who depend on school meals during the year and would otherwise go without.  That is resurrection work: meeting hunger with abundance, scarcity with provision.

It looks like continuing to walk alongside the men and women of the Extension programs here in Cobb County—those at the intersection of homelessness and addiction—sharing meals, building relationships, and bearing witness to dignity, stability, and new life where the world so often expects none.

It looks like the quiet, faithful ministry of the St. Michael Chapel, open day and night, offering respite, prayer, and yes, resurrection, to first responders and law enforcement officers who carry the weight of protecting and serving our community in harm’s way.  In that space, weariness meets peace.  Burden meets grace.

This is what it means to practice resurrection, and to continue in the apostle’s teaching, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers from the Baptismal Covenant.

It means daring to believe that the same God who raised Jesus from the dead is still, even now, raising up what has been cast down and making new what has grown old.

And it means committing ourselves, with the same intention and discipline many of us brought to Lent, to practice resurrection:
to speak words of life,
to act with mercy,
to forgive when it is costly,
to show up when it would be easier to withdraw,
to trust that love is stronger than death.

This is not sentimental work. It is apostolic work.

So as the lilies fade and the world moves on, the Church leans in. We take up again the ancient calling—not just to celebrate the Resurrection, but to bear witness to it.

Because the truth at the heart of Easter has not changed.

Christ is alive.
Christ is at work.
And through the grace of God, so are we.

Pax et Bonum!

Fr. Ben