We are an Easter People, and “Alleluia” is our song! We don’t fear death, and we don’t fear judgment. God is unequivocally for us, who or what could possibly harm us?! Nothing! There is no condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus.

“But…” says a small voice somewhere in the back of my head, “it can’t be that easy can it? You can’t get off the treadmill just yet, you still gotta get your prayer life whipped into shape, and you don’t have much time left to earn that world’s-greatest-dad mug, and don’t forget about…”

And the litany of “buts” goes on. “Yes, Jesus loves me, but… am I sure I deserve it?” “Yes, my future with the Father is secure, but… what about that nasty habit I can’t kick?” “Yes, the Holy Spirit is in me, but… I still gotta do some of the work, right?”

Are you feeling it too? You’re not alone! It even happened almost immediately after Christ rose.

Acts Chapter 15 records one of the biggest “buts” that happened a few years after Jesus’s resurrection. It begins: “Some men came down from Judea and began to teach the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom prescribed by Moses, you cannot be saved.’”
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Jesus’ work was nice, they said, “but” he didn’t change anything: you still gotta be the right kind of person!

Consider Peter’s response:

“Brothers, you are aware that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the gospel message and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he also did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Now then, why are you testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples’ necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are.”

Peter—and the rest of the apostles—said, “Nothing doing! Jesus doesn’t do take-backs!” The Apostle Paul puts it even more bluntly: “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing!”

Let’s be like Peter and Paul, big buts notwithstanding, we are Easter People.

“We do not pretend that life is all beauty. We are aware of darkness and sin, of poverty and pain. But we know Jesus has conquered sin and passed through his own pain to the glory of the Resurrection. And we live in the light of his Paschal Mystery – the mystery of his Death and Resurrection. ‘We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song!’” (Pope John Paul II, quoting Augustine).