And yet, and yet…

Ever find yourself with a zillion open tabs on your browser, or with over a thousand unread emails in your inbox?

For my partially obsessive personality, I get a bit overwhelmed when I see all the open tabs. “What if I will need to access the info on that page?” “What if I forget the password?” “Oh man, I meant to do that. I’ll stop what I’m doing now on another tab to handle that.”

As time goes on, we accumulate open tabs and unread emails. We fear missing out on something that we needed to do, or dread having to do something we don’t want to do.

I had a friend once that had a line on the top of his Xanga page (pre-Facebook/myspace era) that said, “We live lives unresolved.” That line stuck with me.

Many of us are driven by those open tabs in our lives, and we wonder what would it take to actually close them. What would actually happen if I began to seek resolution to those things that are so hard?

Easter can be difficult for people, for while our faith and religious practice say, “It is finished” and we rest in the grace and miracle of our living Savior Jesus Christ, we still have those open tabs in our lives. We sing about how death has lost its sting, but we are terrified to send an email on Monday morning.

For many, the tension of Easter is that while we know that the overwhelming victory for our souls has been won, there are battles here that we are afraid of.

We’re not afraid to die, but we’re sure afraid to live.

And yet, this tension of Easter is also the strength that we can found ourselves upon. Like the old song says, “Because he lives, I can face tomorrow.” While our celebration of the Resurrection at Easter is the time and place where everything changed, the impact of that change can and should ricochet through our lives now.

The problem of the open tabs in our lives isn’t belief; it’s faith. Will the same Jesus that rose from the grave comfort me when I have a difficult conversation at work? Will the same Jesus who allowed his friends to touch the scars in his hands and side walk beside us as we face treatment for illness? Will the same Jesus who prayed over his sleeping friends comfort us when we face disappointment?

While there is a heaviness that comes with Good Friday and a joyfulness that comes with Easter, there is a confidence that comes with the day after Easter. The miracles, the signs and wonders that Jesus worked 2,000 years ago change everything today. We don’t have to live lives unresolved. We can live lives with resolve. We won’t have all the answers and we won’t have the assurance of safety or comfort on the way, but we’ll have the one with the answers alongside us.

So Happy Monday after Easter friends. Let’s resolve to close some of those tabs and lean on Jesus to lead us on our way.

Signs and wonders, y’all.

 ⁹ And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.” Matthew 28:9-10