8 days a week

I ain't got nothing but love, babe
eight days a week.

Lennon gets some of the song writing credit, but the mood of the song feels all McCartney. It was, of course, another number one hit for the Beatles, their seventh, says Wikipedia, and it later became the title of Ron Howard’s 2016 documentary of the band’s early years. The originator might have been Ringo or a chauffeur, that’s lost in the mists of lore now, but the phrase invokes the feeling of always working, or for the Liverpool lads, always loving. There is just so much to do that it either feels like we are going eight days a week or we need an eighth day to get it all done.

We have all said it of course-wouldn’t it be great to have an extra day? That’s not true so much anymore though. March had about 250 extra days, and April’s feeling about the same.

What’s not credited in the Beatles’ song is that the idea of an eighth day comes from our theological traditions. In its exuberance and joy in celebrating our risen Lord, the early church declared that the first day of the week (Sunday, the day when we mark the resurrection) was the eighth day- a new day, time out of time, a day like no other. St. Basil the Great proclaimed “The Lord’s Day is great and glorious. The scripture knows this day without evening, having no other day, a day without end; the 8th Day.”

I love the boldness and tenacity of declaring that the resurrection changes even the calendar. As our millennials might say when it comes to the resurrection: time cannot even! The reality of the resurrection alters reality evermore. The church needed to declare a new day to describe what God has done in Jesus Christ: this is now the eighth day!

In our quarantine season of endless days, this new day is not an extra day. It’s not one more thing to note, another thing to do or online lesson to try and teach. No, this is a new day, a new time because in Easter’s light you are a new you. Your future and your past, your life and your death have been forever shaped by what God has done in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. In defeating death, God in Christ overcame everything that could ever divide us.
   
We don’t need any more extra days thank you very much. But we do need a new day. We need a different day to imagine what God is doing with us and this old world. What we need is a new start. How about an eighth day? Because through the power of resurrection you are a new creation, and today is a new beginning.

 Christ is risen and the angels rejoice. 

Christ is risen and life is freed. 

To Him be glory and power for ever and ever. (Eight days a week!)

Amen.