The crowds have thinned. The songs of celebration have faded. The pastel colours of Easter Sunday are giving way to the routines of Monday. Churches have packed away the decorations, and families have returned to everyday life. But if we’re honest, many of us are left wondering: What now?
Easter Sunday was a crescendo. A global reminder of the single greatest event in human history: The resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, Easter was never meant to be the end of a celebration. It is the beginning of a revolution. If all we got out of Easter was a beautiful church service, a few goosebumps, and some shared meals, then we have reduced resurrection to ceremony.
The question that confronts every believer and every seeker this Easter Monday is both simple and profound: Now that Jesus is risen, how then shall we live?
This is the essence of Easter Monday: Not a winding down but a wake-up; not a closing but a commissioning.
Easter was never designed to be a yearly religious checkpoint. The early church didn’t mark Easter with pageantry; they lived it with passion and purpose. Every gathering, every sermon, every act of love and defiance in the face of persecution pulsed with resurrection energy.
Because Jesus rose from the dead, His followers no longer feared death. Because the grave was conquered, hope could be anchored.
But today, for many, the resurrection lives in the past tense. It is acknowledged as a theological event, but rarely embraced as a present power. We celebrate the empty tomb with hymns and hallelujahs, but struggle to carry that power into our homes, our workplaces, our relationships, and our choices.
Easter Monday reminds us that resurrection is not a theory; it is a reality. And if Christ has truly risen, then everything, absolutely everything, must change.
The power is no longer promised; it is possessed. Scripture declares it boldly in Romans 8:11: “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”
Let that sink in.
The same power that broke death’s grip now courses through the veins of every believer. This is not poetic symbolism. It is spiritual substance.
Because Christ is risen, guilt no longer defines us. Shame no longer controls us. Addiction no longer owns us. Fear no longer limits us.
The power that rolled the stone away now returns the weight from your soul. It gives new strength to the weary, new focus to the distracted, and new courage to those who have known only defeat.
And yet, how often do we live like people still chained by Friday’s failures rather than people empowered by Sunday’s victory?
Easter Monday is the reminder that resurrection didn’t end with Jesus; it began with Him. His triumph was not only personal; it was provisional. It was for us.
So now we must ask: What in our lives still smells like the tomb? What habits, mindsets, compromises, or fears are still holding us in Saturday’s grip when Sunday has already broken through?
The risen Christ did not just leave behind an empty grave; He left behind an empowered people.
Not many have fathomed the strategic silence in between. If crucifixion defines Friday and resurrection power defines Sunday, then silence defines Saturday.
Silent Saturday: The forgotten middle. The day between death and life. The space where it looked like God had gone quiet. Where hope was suspended, and heaven seemed still. Many live in this space today.
And yet now, with the benefit of resurrection hindsight, we know something the disciples did not: God was never absent. In the silence, Jesus was active, invisible but unstoppable. He descended into death’s domain, crushed the head of the serpent, took the keys of death and hell, and rewrote the destiny of the world.
That changes how we see our own “silent Saturdays.”
In every life, there are in-between seasons, waiting for healing, for answers, for provision, for reconciliation. Sometimes, it feels like God has gone dark. Like the heavens are brass. Like prayers are bouncing off the ceiling. But Easter teaches us that silence is not abandonment; it is often preparation.
The delay between promise and fulfillment is where resurrection roots go deep. It is in the quiet that character is forged. It is in the stillness that trust is tested.
If Easter teaches anything, it is this: God’s silence is never His absence. His delay is not denial. And His hiddenness does not mean helplessness.
On Easter Monday, we now look back on every past season of silence with new eyes. What once looked like loss, we now know was a setup. What once felt like a burial, we now recognise as a planting.
Do you know that you are the evidence? The resurrection has happened. The tomb is empty. Christ is alive.
So, how will the world know?
Jesus didn’t carve it into stone. He didn’t write it in the sky. He entrusted it to people.
To fishermen. To tax collectors. To women. To doubters. To sinners. To ordinary men and women with no credentials but the presence of the Risen One.
And today, He entrusts it to you, and to me to tell it from mountain tops that He is risen and alive.
We are now the proof.
You and I, in our workplaces. You and I, in our homes. You and I, in the classroom, in the courtroom, in the boardroom, in the prison, in the hospital, in the streets, even in the rotten citadels of power. No more deceit and pretences. We are the living, breathing, walking evidence that the resurrection is real.
That love still wins. That mercy still flows. That sin can be forgiven. That life can begin again. That the roguery politicians, and glib-tongued babalawos in cassock, messing with the destinies of gullible men, still have a chance NOW to turn new leaves before the winnowing fan blows them away to eternal damnation.
The world is watching. Not for another sermon. But for another sign. And we are that sign.
What does the world see in us the day after Easter? Does it see conviction or complacency? Fire or formality? Life or just liturgy?
Christ didn’t rise so we could return to business as usual. He didn’t rise, so we could remain in the grave where Satan dumped us. He rose to call us into the mission.
Easter Monday launches us into the “afterlife” of resurrection; not a distant hope of heaven alone, but the vibrant, daily life of people who live with eternity in their lungs.
We don’t wait passively for the Second Coming; we live actively from the first rising.
To live as resurrection people means: We forgive, because we have been forgiven. We serve because we follow a risen Servant King. We speak the truth, even when it’s costly. We radiate joy, even in suffering. We carry light, even in the darkest places.
Because we are the light; He made us the light. Darkness must flee for light has come. We must kiss the dark life goodbye. The axe is already laid at the feet of every unfruitful tree. It shall soon be hewn down.
This kind of life is radical. It disrupts apathy. It challenges the culture of impunity and seedy life. It rebukes injustice and puts on the run those who have pocketed our judiciary to perpetrate evil. It embraces the outcast. It heals the broken.
It looks like Jesus.
And it is possible, because He lives.
Don’t just mark Easter; manifest it. Easter Monday is not an afterthought. It is the beginning of everything new.
Jesus did not rise so we could remember Him with flowers and cymbals once a year. He rose to inhabit us, commission us, and transform the world through us.
The resurrection has happened. The victory has been won. The Spirit has been given.
Now, the church must rise.
Let us not be a people who visit the tomb on Sunday and forget the mission by Monday. Let us be those who live, speak, love, and lead like Jesus is alive, because He is.
The celebration may be over, but the call has just begun.
He rose. We rise. Now, let’s live like it.