Easter Readings

Last week my brother brought his two little girls (6 and 4) to Mom's. Doing duty as a swing-pusher in the backyard, I chatted with the six-year-old, and said something about Easter lasting 50 days. Kate turned and looked at me with a skeptical eye. "Is that true?" she said. "Is what true?" "That Easter lasts 50 days."
"Sure is."
And so it is in the readings for this season. The weekday lectionary takes us, on the one hand, to the first days of the post-Pentecost Church, and on the other, to the early days of Jesus' preaching ministry. In the one, the Church's missionary experiences and growing pains, in the other, the promise of the Bread of Life that will keep the Church alive through it all. And in today's passages, both Acts and John refer back to the prophets, telling us that this was all prepared well in advance. Nothing we face today, nothing, falls outside of God's saving providence.
Easter lasts...even more than 50 days!