The crowds have departed, the bells of Westminster are still. After the long build up, and all the waiting, the wedding of William and Catherine has finally taken place. The dress, the vows, the kiss, and then the street parties. All over in less than 24 hours. What on earth will the world’s media do now?

They will move on as they always do. After all, the Royal Wedding has ‘been and gone’ as Zoe Ball said on her Radio 2 show this morning.

Actually Zoe had got herself into a bit of a muddle by playing last week’s Easter Saturday ‘Pause for Thought’ by mistake instead of the one prepared for this week. I turned on in the middle of it, and wondered why I was listening to someone telling me that “this is the only day on which there are no services in the Christian Church, as we wait to celebrate the resurrection on Easter Day tomorrow”. I thought perhaps I’d been shifted back a week in some bizarre ‘Doctor Who’ time slip; either that or I was finally losing it.

Afterwards, though, all was explained as an embarrassed and apologetic Zoe explained she had indeed played the wrong recording. Easter, she said, had been and gone and the Royal Wedding had been and gone.

Been and gone?

Of course as far as William and Kate and the rest of us are concerned, the wedding day has been and gone. But a wedding day does not a marriage make. The Big Day is over, but now comes the many, many years (we hope) of building on the solemn and binding promises made yesterday. As they say, marriage isn’t a word it’s a sentence. It’s not about one day, however glorious, it’s about a lifelong journey. After the pomp and circumstance comes the outworking and fulfilment of all that the day symbolises.

However, I was far more concerned that Zoe in her show this morning dismissed Easter as ‘been and gone’.

Yes, Easter Day is over, but Easter is much more than one day in the calendar. Easter is a season not just a day. Certainly, Easter Day is the climax of Holy Week, and provides the high point of the Christian Year, but it is just the start. The Easter season lasts for fifty days!

Instead of thinking it’s all over, there are weeks of Easter still to come. This gives us plenty of opportunity to reflect on all the promise of Easter Day itself. A chance to grapple with the meaning and implications of Christ’s resurrection. The time to celebrate and work out the consequences of the momentous historical incident that is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

The first Sunday of Easter is the beginning, not the climax of the season. Easter is not an event after which we move on to something else.

So sorry, Zoe, but for me Easter has not ‘been and gone’. There are fifty days of the season, and three hundred and sixty five in the year. Every single one of those days is transformed by the resurrection of Jesus. Christians are Easter people all year round!