Acts 20:7a

Sisters and brothers in Christ,

This evening’s Bible passage is Acts 20:7a: “On the first day of the week, when we gathered together to break bread …”

Easter Sunday isn’t the only time when Christians celebrate Christ’s resurrection.

All four gospels affirm that Christ rose from the dead on “the first day of the week.” From very early in the history of the church, Christians confirmed the central role of the resurrection in their communal life by meeting together for worship, not on the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday) but on Sunday, the first day of the week, the day of the resurrection.

This was already a shared custom among the churches when Paul and Luke visited Troas. Luke notes that the Christian community there “gathered together to break bread” on “the first day of the week.” Paul alludes to the same practice in 1 Cor. 16:1-2, where the church in Corinth was urged to take up “a collection for the saints” when they met “on the first day of every week.” Gathering together on Sundays—even if it has to be in Google hangout rooms for now —is a custom we still observe.

Why? It’s not as a matter of convenience, just because it’s the time of the week when most of us get a day off work. It’s the other way around. Sunday is the day most of us get a day off because we live in a culture shaped by Christian custom and Christians have been meeting on Sundays for nearly two millennia.

So why did Christians settle on Sunday? Why not Friday? Meeting on Friday would have acknowledged the centrality of the crucifixion to our faith. After all, under normal circumstances, we “proclaim the Lord’s death” every week when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Yes, but we “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26), and with that simple addition we celebrate the fact that Christ didn’t stay dead, that he rose from the tomb, that he’s very much alive and with us, and that he’ll come again in glory. Meeting on a Sunday underlines this truth, joyously wrapping our commemoration of Christ’s death in the transforming mantle of the resurrection.

Put simply, the resurrection is more important than the crucifixion. Absolutely essential as the death of Christ on the cross is to our salvation, without the resurrection it would literally have been a dead end. It’s the resurrection that brings the crucifixion to life, assuring us that Christ truly accomplished our salvation on the cross and that our living—not dead—Savior rules our lives and even, though it may be hard to see it at times, our world.

The resurrection proclaims the triumph of life over death, of restoration and renewal over decay and corruption, of new beginnings over dead ends. The resurrection points beyond the tragedy of what would otherwise have been a pointless death to the certainty of an eternal happy ending. Christ is “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20). We, too, will die sooner or later, if Christ doesn’t return before then, but we will also be raised from the dead to enjoy the new heaven and the new earth. For us to gather together every Sunday is a way of embracing and celebrating that promise.

Easter Sunday isn’t the only time in the year when Christians celebrate the resurrection. Happily, we do it every single Sunday.

Your brother in Christ,

Max