Easter Sunday and Tuesday Chores
Filed under {!-- ra:0000000016774f990000000012466b9f --}{if 'Easter Sunday and Tuesday Chores' == '52home' && category_name == '52home'} Biblical Womanhood | Gospel {if:else} Biblical Womanhood | Gospel {/if}Ever feel like you have nothing to show for all your hard work in the home? You make lunch for littles only to sweep more crumbs off the floor. You organize a closet only to have it get cluttered again. You train your children and they throw a fit at the family gathering. You serve your husband but he doesn’t seem to notice.
What’s the point?
Nothing drains our zeal for homemaking like the feeling of futility. As the wise man in Ecclesiastes asks: “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” (Ecc. 1:3)
His answer is as (apparently) disheartening as it is realistic:
“Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun” (Ecc. 2:11, emphasis mine).
This is reality—the reality of your life and mine, your homemaking and mine—without Easter Sunday. Nothing to be gained. Worthless. Pointless. A waste of time.
But the cross of Jesus Christ, and his resurrection from the dead, changes everything. Not only has death been “swallowed up in victory” says Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:55, but also the futility that flows from death. Because of the resurrection, our work is not a waste of time.
“Therefore [in light of the glorious resurrection], my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58).
What should we do in light of the resurrection? Here in this verse God tells us: “stick with it” “don’t give up” “keep working.” The resurrection of Jesus Christ not only certifies that “it is finished,” it tells us to “get going.”
The resurrection motivates us to work hard, for all work done “in the Lord”—for his glory and in his strength—is not in vain. It is not pointless. Because of the resurrection all floor-mopping and sippy-cup-filling done “in the Lord” will last forever.
Sure, if we work in our home for human applause our work will be in vain. Our family will never appreciate us enough. The world will never esteem us enough. Even if we seek our own personal satisfaction or fulfillment, we’ll come up empty. Nothing will be gained. We might as well go chase the wind.
But if we abound in the work of the Lord, for the sake of the glory of our Lord, we can be absolutely sure it is not in vain, as surely as we know that our Savior rose from the grave.