Today, Christians celebrate the most revolutionary day in history.
We honor the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and acknowledge his worthiness to be praised for eternity. “I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades,” says Jesus (Rev. 1:18). The Christ died and was laid in the earth; then “he took one breath and put death to death.” Jesus Christ is alive and seated at the right hand of the Father (Heb. 10:12). This is the foundation of the Christian faith!
It is the powerful true story of God stepping into our plight, humbly and lovingly offering himself as the payment for our sins. While we resided in misery and darkness, Christ became cursed in sin, so that in his resplendent glory we might become righteous (2 Cor. 5:21). While this warrants special attention and celebration—the Holy Week should be a time for all Christians to orient their lives around the events of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ—the Resurrection is also the most extraordinary reason to carry on with ordinary life. Because Christ is alive and ever interceding for us for our salvation and sanctification (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25; 1 Jn. 2:1), we may confidently go about Sunday as usual.
Make no mistake, however, “Sunday as usual”—or the Christian life as usual—is no boring or inconsequential matter. On the contrary, such supposedly menial tasks as sharing a meal, reading a good book, praying, or giving resources to others are not ordinary, but Spirit-empowered work. Is this not what the early Christians did, following the ascension of Christ? Even as “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers,” they were filled with wonder: “awe came upon every soul” (Acts 2:42–43). While, yes, “many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles” (2:43), the world kept turning. Normal cultural practices of gathering, of sharing with one another, and religious disciplines such as prayer, were not nullified but rather even more extraordinary than before.
In 2022, Church of the Rock, a multi-site megachurch in Winnipeg, Canada, went viral for their absurd stage plays on Easter. That year’s was Marvel’s Avengers themed, and consisted of Loki crucifying Iron Man while Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping” played in the background. (I seriously never thought I’d type that sentence.) The viral clips of that and other plays put on by the church became memes, talking points, and the laughing-stock of religious culture for some time.
Megachurches are often known for outlandish on-stage performances that arguably disgrace Christianity. A more recent example is Michael Todd pouring maple syrup and whipped cream on the Bible during a sermon illustration. Todd’s illustration is a “very sad commentary on the sensationalism in much of the Church today,” David Croteau told Julie Roys. And that’s quite frankly what Western churches deal with, perhaps more than any other churches in the world: sensationalizing the Gospel. As I write this during Holy Week, and as you read this on Easter (or after—I forgive you), let’s ponder the state of the Church in the West. How do we combat the consumerism and sensationalism that produces unrealistic, even un-Christian experiences? I submit to you that our treatment of the ordinary life is a strong defense against the pressing desire for big, shock-factor, entertaining moments.
Our treatment of the ordinary life is a strong defense against the desire for sensationalism in the Church.
In his famous sermon, “Learning in War-Time,” C.S. Lewis underwent the grueling task of pondering the life of an academic amid a great war:
As students, you will be expected to make yourselves, or to start making yourselves, into what the Middle Ages called clerks: into philosophers, scientists, critics, or historians. And at first sight this seems to be an odd thing to do during a great war. What is the use of beginning a task which we have so little chance of finishing?
In the face of impending doom, of great struggle and loss as the world splintered under constant war, a general sentiment must have arisen that “such comparative trivialities as literature or art, mathematics or biology” were not worth pursuing because the world was approaching developments of generational impact. Lewis responds:
Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself . . . it is clear that Christianity does not exclude any of the ordinary human activities.
While we are not in the midst of a great war, it seems beneficial to borrow from the great apologist and Christian thinker to bolster our twenty-first century understanding of “ordinary human activities.” A common threat to the notion of “merely natural activities” (far more subliminal yet equally poisonous) is to nurture the same attitude comparatively to the “next best thing.”
How are work and everyday tasks so life-giving and exciting as those annual vacations, or those highly anticipated movies and concerts? Why take time to share a meal with friends, read a good book while sitting next to the river, or spend the day at home playing cards with family when you’re on the cusp of much greater things? Why do the so-called “mundane” things when all those exciting ventures are out there?
Church of the Rock and Michael Todd’s church, Transformation Church, are examples of a larger trend in Western Christianity: when people become obsessed with the sensational, they seek it more often. Then, any “normal” Sunday service seems bland, powerless. But God still moves in subtle ways. It is counter-cultural, perhaps even a bit revolutionary, for Christians today to welcome the beauty of “ordinary life,” to unsubscribe from the overwhelming need of people in society to always live large, posting on TikTok and Instagram to solidify our relevancy among our community and the greater public.
I believe in some sense that Christians, as a result of aforementioned societal norms, treat certain acts as worship-worthy and others as vain pursuits. One example is a Christian’s testimony. “I didn’t do drugs or anything,” one may say. “I simply grew up in a Christian home, then accepted Christ when I truly saw my need for salvation.” Never mind that going from death to life is always a miracle.
We run the risk of sensationalizing shock-factor moments while neglecting those powerful, yet often overlooked, means of worship and grace in the Christian life. You can only douse the Holy Bible in maple syrup so much before you must do something even more sacrilegious in the name of keeping your consumeristic and sensationalized audience inundated. I daresay that these moments would nullify the beauty and power of even the sacraments.
Once again, Lewis’s war-time words are helpful, and operate as the thrust of my rant-like essay here:
All our merely natural activities will be accepted, if they are offered to God, even the humblest: and all of them, even the noblest, will be sinful if they are not.
This Easter, I pray you are absolutely blown away, overwhelmed, encouraged by the Gospel of Christ: that he rose from the dead, cancelling our debts and securing the offer of salvation for all who believe in him.
But I also hope you are settled. The Prince of Peace rose from the dead, an extravagant display of his power and love, that you might be at peace with God. You must no longer seek satisfaction and worth in the talked-about moments of life or in the sensational, but find it in Christ. His work is done.
Offer everything up to God as worship, humbly. Break bread, pray, gather with those you love. Every chore and small deed, every conversation, every night spent with friends—every “natural activity” may be holy before God. So, read good books, see good art, revel in God’s creation; in so doing, you push back against the sensationalism of our time.
The most extraordinary and powerful event in history, the resurrection of Christ from the dead, gives you every reason to sanctify—and carry on with—ordinary life.