"We are People of the Third Day!" Bill Lawrence's powerful statement is permanently imprinted on my brain and heart. We sat in the dark on a cold Easter morning, gathered on Flag Pole Hill in Dallas. The hillside was covered with blankets, grumpy children, and parents who thought this was a good idea a few days ago! I imagine it was mostly Moms who engineered this spiritual family time, don't you?
It didn't matter ---- Bill's words cut through all of that and landed in my heart just like a Percy Jackson character hurling the lightening bolt.
Lately, though, I have been thinking a great deal about the Second Day. What was that like? Confusion, exhaustion, recrimination, and maybe even some personal examination ----It seems like much of my life is spent in the valley between the unthinkably awful and the gloriously discernible ----the Saturdays of life.
But even without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the disciples did the right thing ---- they did all of this together. They held on to each other. We are a community of faith ---- we are to do good to all men, ESPECIALLY those of the household of faith.
There weren't any activities going on that day ---- no fancy meals being prepared, no fancy dresses being ironed, no fancy hairdos being worked on. They were just together wondering how their world had fallen apart. They didn't know Easter was coming. They didn't even know to be dying eggs and hiding them in the yard for the next morning!
This second day is where we live a lot. We make out way through unspeakable pain somehow and eventually the Lord brings us into resurrection; it is that second day experience that is so excruciating. But, we do it together. "We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord" said the old Jesus Movement song ----they were one and so should we be.
Yes, we are People of the Third Day, but with each other, we should be standing together when our brothers and sisters are living in their second days!