Easter Tuesday is an often-overlooked day in the Christian calendar, falling in the wake of the Easter celebration. The stone is rolled away, death is defeated, and hope is alive. Yet, just two days later, we often find ourselves back in the thick of the ordinary—emails, doctor visits, broken relationships, physical pain, personal doubts, financial struggles, and a deep longing for what is missing. Easter Tuesday invites us into a sacred tension: the paradox of resurrection joy mingled with the grief of life in a world not yet fully redeemed.
The apostle Peter was undeniably aware of this tension when he identified followers of Jesus in the first century as “elect exiles” (1 Pet. 1:1, ESV). An elect exile is promised to receive an eternal inheritance from an eternal kingdom but currently lives in a broken place that is not home. It is to these elect exiles that Peter wrote these words:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. (vv. 3–6)
Peter knew this sacred tension. God’s mercy has provided a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus, bringing an eternal inheritance that is being kept for us (vv. 3–4). It is in this we rejoice (v. 6), and it is in this very hope that Easter Sunday is such a meaningful celebration. But this day of redemption has not yet come. So Peter also reminds us to grieve (v. 6). Sadly, joy and grief often get pitted against each other, especially in the church. But joy and grief should be seen as holy companions in a fallen world.
Easter Tuesday is not an afterthought. Rather, it is a powerful reminder that resurrection is not an escape from the world’s pain but a transformation of how we endure it. Jesus rose, but the wounds remained in his hands. So too, we carry wounds: griefs, losses, pains, betrayals, and unanswered questions. Easter doesn’t erase them; it reinterprets them through the lens of hope. Easter doesn’t solve them but provides a foundation to embrace the sorrow we rightly experience because of them.
On Easter Sunday, we stand in the light of the empty tomb. But by Easter Tuesday, we often find ourselves back in the shadows. The cancer is still there. That financial struggle is not resolved. The depression returns. That relationship is still broken. We might ask, “If Christ is risen, why does the world still feel so broken?” This is not a lack of faith; it’s the honest lament of believers who are learning to walk in the tension of the now and the not yet. Peter reminds the elect exiles in the first century, as well as those of today, of this sacred tension—the same one Paul captured when writing to the Romans: “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (12:15).
This sacred tension calls us to rejoice and weep on Easter Tuesday. Rejoice that Jesus is risen. We have a living hope. We are promised an eternal inheritance, which is being kept for us by the one who purchased it with his own life. But embrace the grief too. Sadness is the healing emotion of the soul. Sorrow is a gift from God that allows our souls to breathe and cope in a world that aches, longing for restoration. The risen Christ we celebrated on Sunday remains “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3, ESV). Jesus sweetly and powerfully meets us in this sacred tension, if we would stop, be still, and go to him today in our time of need (Heb. 4:14–16).
Brian Croft is the founder and executive director of Practical Shepherding. He is also the senior fellow for the Mathena Center for Church Revitalization at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and has written or contributed to more than 25 books on pastoral ministry.
