Today’s blog post is about Easter from a deeply methodist standpoint in the form of a sermon. As a spiritual director I felt with all that is going on in the world we could take a moment and breathe into a deeply felt practice. And yes, I know that some of my brothers and sisters do not practice this form of worship, thank you for reading, and, lastly for those of you that do not have an active faith, consider acts of kindness you can perform.

When I was a child, one of the greatest joys of Easter was not the church service—but the Cadbury chocolate bunny ears. I don’t know about you, but I could not wait for Easter morning: the thrill of hunting for hidden eggs, the bright colors winking from the grass, baskets overflowing with candy, and the small, necessary negotiations with my brother over the Peeps I didn’t like. It became a ritual I could not escape, one that shaped my expectations for finding hidden treasures. I learned to look for delight in the ordinary places; I learned that joy is often buried, waiting to be discovered.

For those of us who celebrate this holy week for a man called Jesus, and for brothers and sisters from other traditions who know how important this time is for Christians, I want to offer a few thoughts. Do you think we might have missed the point? We faithfully observe Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and finally Easter Sunday. We come to our respective places of worship, we sing the hymns, we share the sacrament, we kneel and we weep and we laugh. But then—when the baskets are put away until next year, and in my case the last of the chocolate bunny has met his end—what do we do with the days that follow?

Eastertide. The church calendar gives us a word for the season we so often forget: Eastertide, the fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost. Within that season is another mark: the forty days after Easter—the days in which the risen Christ we believe in continued to appear among his disciples, teaching, encouraging, healing, and preparing them. Luke, in Acts 1:3, tells us that Jesus “presented himself alive to them by many proofs” and “appeared to them for forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.” Forty days—long enough to be formative, not a mere moment but a way of life being reframed.

Think for a moment of the bunny ears. As a child I associated them with surprise and delight; they trained my eye to pay attention to the small, hidden places where joy could be found. But if Easter for us is only the morning we find the chocolate, if that joy is only the counter of an Easter Sunday, then we have turned a lifetime into a holiday. We have reduced a movement of God—into a seasonal confection. Jesus does not show up for one photograph and then leave. He walks with the disciples for forty days and more; he breaks bread, he opens scriptures, he commissions them to go out. This Easter life spills over into ordinary days.

This is the pastoral point I want to leave with you: Easter is not an event to be consumed. It is a reality to be inhabited. The forty days after Easter are practice sessions. They are an apprenticeship in what it means to live in the knowing of Christ. The early church did not celebrate Easter and then go back to business as usual. They kept the feast. They lingered in the light of Jesus until their habits, their affections, their deeds, were reshaped.

What does that reshaping look like? Allow me to name a few practices—simple, Methodist (me being Methodist), and practical—that can help us live Eastertide as more than memory.

1. Keep the feast of the Jesus. The Wesleyan tradition talks about “means of grace”: prayer, scripture, the sacraments, fasting, and works of mercy. During the forty days, make a habit of coming to the table. Let the sacrament of Holy Communion remind you that resurrection is a feast to be shared.

2. Read these Easter stories slowly. Don’t rush past the Easter narratives as if you know how they go. Re-read Luke 24, John 20–21 and Acts 1. Hear the bewilderment, the fear, the doubts of the disciples. Notice how often Jesus invites them into ordinary things: eating fish, walking on the road, opening scripture. We are invited into this relationship not as a leap into fantasy but as a transformation of the everyday.

3. Practice visibility and testimony. The early disciples were given the task to witness. But witness is not merely verbal proof; it is a life that reflects the truth of the faith. This Eastertide season, decide on one way to make faith visible: meals with a neighbor, forgiveness offered where resentment lingered, a note to someone who is lonely, a visit to someone in prison, charity given without fanfare. Let your life be an Easter basket for others.

4. Re-learn to look for hidden things. The chocolate bunny ear was hidden to be found—and that shaped my anticipation. Similarly, Jesus revealed that God hides grace in unlikely places: in failure, in loss, in hospital rooms, in apologies. Train your eyes to find the small, bright things of God. Keep a journal for forty days in which you note one “hidden treasure” you noticed each day—an unexpected kindness, a phrase of Scripture that struck you, a sunrise you had not seen before. By the end of forty days, your instincts will be reoriented toward noticing God.

5. Tend to doubt honestly. Thomas’s doubt is part of the story (John 20:24–29). The forty days included questions and skepticism. Methodism, for all its joy, has room for honest uncertainty. Bring your questions to God. Bring them to your community. The Easter story is not weakened by doubt; it is made credible by a God big enough to meet us in our honest, messy searching.

6. Remember the promise of mission. The forty days end in a commission. The Christ prepares his followers to be sent. The direction is outward. Our discipleship, formed in Eastertide, must lead us into the world with mercy, justice, and love. Easter is always an announcement that something new has begun; it calls the church to participate in God’s new creation.

And finally, let us talk for a minute about ritual and memory. The practice of an Easter egg hunt—hidden treasures, bright colors, baskets—wasn’t a failure as ritual. It taught me to expect joy. But if we do not let that expectation reach beyond candy, if we do not allow it to inform how we look at the poor, how we treat our spouse, how we speak to our children, then the ritual has become a trap. The chocolate bunny taught me how to search. The Christ teaches us where to look in the broken, the overlooked, the hurting—and in those places we find the glory of God waiting, like an egg, for discovery.

So, if you find yourself this week putting the baskets away and wondering what to do next, I invite you to spend these forty days as if your life depends on it—because it does. Begin with small things: a daily prayer of thanksgiving for one surprising thing you noticed; one act of mercy each week; one conversation about faith with someone who does not belong to the church; a regular reading of the Easter narratives. Practice being a people who not only celebrate an event but live a new life.

We believe that Christ is risen. This is not an idea to be tucked away in a corner like last year’s candy. It is the force that calls us out of the habit of fear, despair, and selfishness. It is the promise that our old life will not have the last word. And it is a call to spend the next forty days—and the next forty years—looking for and making visible the hidden treasure of God’s kingdom.

Jesus, you appeared to your disciples and walked with them in ordinary days. Walk with us these forty days. Open our eyes to the hidden places where you hide your grace. Teach us to feast, to witness, to forgive, and to love. Shape our expectations so that we look for you not only on high festival mornings but in the faces at our table, in the poor at our gate, in the breaking of bread each day. Send us forth with Easter joy, and fill us with the Spirit of surprising, steadfast love. Amen.

Go now my friends, with ears attuned to the small, bright things of God—and with baskets ready to give away what you have been given. Alleluia.