Easter is in the bag. Actually, it’s been a week. We’ve put away the Easter hymns, lilies (achoo!), and settled into the “normal life” of the church. Sure, we’ll celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, but we lack the impetus or understanding to make Easter a reality in our lives everyday.

But then something happens. Maybe it’s a close call. Maybe it’s a diagnosis. Maybe it’s the death of a friend.  Suddenly, we’re faced with one of those “come to Jesus” moments, and we begin to look at what really matters.

Somehow, the cranky moments with our kids are a little sweeter.

Somehow, the arguments with our spouse, parents, or friends don’t seem to be quite that important.

Somehow, the work that has kept us up at night for weeks could probably wait for another day.

It’s a life-changing type of move that we say we believe, but we sometimes have a hard time living out. It’s part of the struggle.

Christian rapper DA Truth raps that when we live the Christian life, death isn’t a period but a comma. Our problems, our life in a Good Friday world, is temporal, passing, and the joy of the Lord is what we’re to hold onto.

We share that on Easter, and at every funeral, but if we lived like it each moment, of every day…?

If we recognized that death was a comma; that our problems were mere stanzas, not the whole song; that our relationships were books, and our arguments were merely paragraphs; that our view was through a mirror darkly, but that God sees the great, panoramic picture:

Our world would be better…

Our happiness would increase…

Our relationships would be better…

Other people would be blessed.

I Corinthians 15:20 states, “But Christ HAS been raised from the dead” (emphasis mine!) It’s the final line in Paul’s argument about what it means to live in faith and hope in Jesus Christ. It’s the thesis statement.

It’s the truth we should seek to live out in our lives, because it will make all of the difference.