This year, the grand total of our family Easter Eggs hunts equals six. My son takes the prize with four, while my daughter only managed two.
In case you’re wondering, she is not at all happy about that.
Behind egg hunts sit mommas and daddies and grandparents and teachers stuffing candy, stickers, tattoos, tiny plastic toys into all those eggs. This momma stuffed her children’s eggs with quarters, nickels, and dimes. Plus one special egg holding a single dollar bill.
And also, leftover Halloween candy. Because the alternative is that stuff gets thrown out October 30th.
Shhhh. Don’t tell my children.
I sat on my couch after Sunday Easter Lunch scrolling through various social media accounts, liking all the smiling, gussied-up faces of my friends, family, and several folks I haven’t seen in twenty years.
Social media is at it’s finest on holidays.
I adore the pictures of families, videos of kids running into each other during their church’s egg hunt, fur babies wearing bunny costumes, and more smocked dresses and jon-jons than the number of Peeps thrown into the trash.
But I also thought about today.
Monday.
When those smiling faces will head back to work and school and activities. The pretty dresses and freshly starched shirts get piled in hampers with the rest of the weekend’s dirty laundry. And Sunday’s honey glazed ham straight out of the oven turns into Monday’s cold sandwiches in brown bags.
Really. Monday is kind of a letdown.
But.
Should it be?
Good Friday social media is as sad as Easter Sunday social media is glad. Good Friday says the sun stopped shining, the rocks and mountains shock and the veil of the temple was torn in two. Friday is dark but, oh, Y’all, Sunday’s coming!
Right? Don’t we all reply, Hold on! Sunday’s coming!
And Sunday does come! Every year. Along with permission to wear white again, Grandma’s deviled eggs, and baskets full of so many toys, it seems the Easter Bunny is gunnin’ for Santa’s job.
Cel-le-brate! Jesus! Celebrate!
(Please say you sang that.)
But then Monday comes with its too-early alarms. Broken plastic eggs you stepped on when you got out bed. Emails with tasks you didn’t want to do on Friday, much less now.
And the good you felt standing in Sunday services are busted all up before you’ve even brushed your teeth.
Sunday came.
And went.
We heard the pastor say on Sunday, Jesus’ resurrection changes everything.
But on Monday, we heard our boss ask for that report a full week ahead of schedule and we’re nowhere close to being done.
On Sunday, we read that our past and our shame and our guilt died with Christ and we are a new creation in Him.
But on Monday, we still hear the whispers of that bad decision/awful day/embarrassing moment we can’t forget, can’t move past and nothing feels new at all.
On Sunday, we felt the freedom of It is finished and no longer needing to strive and work and struggle to be anything or anyone other than the person we are right at that moment because the victory is complete in Jesus.
But on Monday, we find out we didn’t get the promotion and our kid didn’t pass his test and the cancer returned and we feel unseen, not enough, exhausted from the fight.
Our Monday feels…
…like Saturday.
The in-between day when there are no answers, only questions. When life is lost and grief cripples. When we feel stuck and covered in regret.
Saturday is silent and stoic and stunned and still.
And almost every year, our Sunday comes with its victory and freedom only to see it stolen by Monday’s brokenness and battles.
But the truth, Friend? The same victory and freedom available on Sunday is still available on Monday. The same power that rose Jesus from the grave on Sunday continues to be ours when our feet hit the floor on Monday.
The ham may be cold and the Peeps may be stale and our pictures may be less frilly but Y’all, Monday holds the same Joy, the same Redemption, the same Grace as Sunday ever did.
Monday is the same as Sunday.
That’s the good news, Y’all.
Because of one Sunday, all Mondays ever hold the one Sunday Finished.
What if we chose to live as Sunday people on Monday mornings?
Or Wednesday lunches? Or Friday soccer practices? Or Thursday PTA meetings?
What if we asked our risen Savior to fill us up to overflowing with His Sunday victory on our Monday commute?
What if we reminded ourselves we are clothed in Christ’s righteousness because He hung on that cross every.single.time the enemy whispers in our ear?
What if we refused to allow our Monday’s to be like all the previous Mondays and started living a Sunday life every day?
What if?
We would change the world.
Your world.
You would change your world.
Today, let’s eat our cold ham sandwiches and do a load of weekend-kind-of-dirty laundry and tell the lies of condemnation and shame It is Finished. It’s done. There is no work left to do.
Let’s shout, “Listen up, Brokenness and Guilt and My Past, I’m gonna eat this sandwich and be glad. I’m gonna fold these clothes and be joyful. I’m gonna tell you about my Jesus and His Sunday and His Victory and be grateful. Monday? You are done here.”
Sunday has come, Y’all.
And that’s enough to cover anything the rest of the week can throw our way.