Every Easter, people everywhere gather in houses of worship to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord. Preparations for this day include shopping for new outfits, hunting Easter eggs, attending Resurrection breakfasts, rehearsing Easter dramas and cantatas, and the like.
Easter is proverbially the day the unchurched feel obligated to attend. When Easter Sunday morning comes, churches fill up with people coming to pay their honor to the Christian faith, many of which will not give the Lord a second thought until much the same festivities accompany Christmas, again pointed the masses to the work of Christ.
For the believer, Easter is the crescendo of everything we have celebrated all year. We prepare for larger crowds. We enhance the appeal of our buildings. We pull out all the stops and put our best foot forward. But what do we expect as the aftermath of Easter Sunday? Normally, once the excitement of the day has past, the masses return to ignoring God and the church returns to faithfully serving.
I submit to you the obvious. Easter Sunday is not about dramas, breakfast meetings or egg hunting. These are presumably only tools to draw the masses. Easter is about the harvest. Easter Sunday is perhaps THE day when the harvest presents itself for reaping! It is the moment then the unchurched willingly grace the doors of our churches to do the decent thing. If we miss this opportunity, Easter has been of none effect.
I rejoice to declare that eight people made decisions for Christ this Easter at the House of Restoration. Those eight people were worth every hour spent cleaning, every egg filled with candy, every song sung, every word preached, every minute spent preparing for the day. Easter is a day of harvest. All over the country churches reported salvations taking place in their services. Heaven won a great victory. A mighty army was reached for the Kingdom. To God be the Glory!
