Pastor’s Thoughts

Dear Friends,

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  These are words we say each Sunday throughout the Easter season.  Easter is at the very heart of our human existence.  Not just for Christians but for all people.  Christ Jesus died for all people and by his death and resurrection Jesus has created a new world order where he is King and Lord of all.  Humanity and all of creation cannot be fully understood or explained apart from Jesus Christ.  People try to define existence apart from God but such teachings, beliefs, and practices leave us mired in our sins, in our inability to be the people God created us to be.

This, then, becomes the beauty of Easter.  God has changed all this wallowing in our own sins, our lack of compassion, our pride, our wantonness, our miserableness, and has made us alive in Jesus.  I am not dead, I am alive!  I am not lost, I am found!  I am not a nobody, I am a child of God!  How did God do this?  How did God change our worldview?  By coming in the flesh to defeat the power of sin, death, and the devil.  In his life, Jesus showed us what it means to be a human being created in the image of God.  In his flesh, Jesus demonstrated what our response to God’s gift of life, love, and forgiveness should be: prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.  Not only that but also a humbling of oneself where we count others worthier than ourselves.  In so doing, we   become servants to one another.  In so doing, we become Christ to one another.   It is in this state of being that we find true joy and peace because we are now living according to the Spirit and not the flesh.  We see life as good, as beautiful, as a gift, a joy to be experienced and shared with others.  All this because Jesus rose from the dead.  Jesus changed everything!  Easter changed everything!

May all of us celebrate Easter with a renewed joy this year.  The winter has been long.  Our trials have been many.  But Christ Jesus our Lord has conquered death.  He has risen.  Can you see the new life we now have in Christ?  Can you feel it in your heart and soul?  The Son has arisen, and we now walk in the light of his grace, his mercy, and his love.  Easter.  Glorious Easter!  Come, now, Lord Jesus, and make us your own.

Shalom, Pastor Roger