Discipline isn’t a word we associate with Easter — it’s actually a Lent word. And how do we use the word in Lent? It is about being intentional with our behavior, our vision, our learning during the time that precedes Easter.

And why is that?

Because Easter is about new life.

The dead don’t stay dead. But that doesn’t mean things go back to normal. It means everything is made new. A new world. New patterns.

Let’s be crystal clear about this. Before the resurrection: God doesn’t just bring people back. After it: That idea is now on the table.

So those first followers started acknowledging how fundamental this change is and how much it speaks to the whole Jesus project.

After the resurrection, people look back at the stuff Jesus said and did and were like, “damn, that sounds like resurrection!” The parable of the Good Samaritan? Resurrection thinking. The Lost Sons? Resurrection thinking. The Beatitudes? Resurrection thinking. Feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, freeing the imprisoned? Resurrection thinking. Mercy and absolution for the repentant? Resurrection thinking.

So now, as everything is resurrection, they start, from the very early days, to see the time before Easter as the time to help prepare people for this thinking. And they timed literal resurrections to happen at Easter. Baptisms and restorations. Bringing the dead to life.

Here’s the thing: without resurrection thinking, we hate the resurrection. I mean, who wouldn’t want their own resurrection? But sometimes the people experiencing rebirth aren’t us! Sometimes they’re people that pissed us off. Then suddenly, we’re not onboard for this whole restoration thing. We want them condemned, not restored!

Discipline is about learning

And the point of the time before Easter that we call Lent is to prepare us. So we read scripture and pray and otherwise prepare for what Easter brings: change. We prepare to be changed and for the community to change.

So guess what? That junk doesn’t stop on Monday.

We’ve got more resurrecting to witness and participate in. We have change in our midst and we need to keep at it.

This doesn’t mean we need to abstain from chocolate or whatever like it is Lent still. But we need to get real about what that self-denial was for. We were supposed to be preparing ourselves to be more generous, thoughtful, loving human beings. It was about committing to the resurrection in our own lives, in our neighborhood, and in our world.

Easter keeps going.

If you skipped church and spent the morning attacking people online, then you clearly missed the point.

But for everyone else, there is something we are all called to participate in. A group project that comes into full-flowering on Easter. It requires people and it is involves the revealed grace of God. And we sing about it and share it, ring bells and sing. And we gather to eat sumptuous foods and laugh.

We call it love. And we dare to be changed by it.