Friends, I hope you were able to catch our Palm Sunday celebrations, either in person or online, and I hope you are planning to join us for the services of the Three Great Days and for Easter Sunday. We have so much fun to have, so many eggs to find… but above all else, we have a message to proclaim. Yes, THAT one… but also this one: God raises faith, and hope, and love from places of death and despair. I look around and I see a world that is more desperate and shrouded by death than it should be, far away and close at hand too… and we live in that world, move through it, have our lives in it. Are we those who let death and despair cling closely to us, shrouding our words and our actions in an all-too-familiar cultural blanket of rage and resentment and fear?
Or do we let love win, not just on a shirt but in our hearts? Do we let hope break through, not just metaphorically but literally lifting our heads away from looking down into a pit of noise and manipulative information? Do we have faith that if we take a stand against death and despair, God will be with us, lifting us up, restoring our joy?
Come and see. Come and be with us. Come worship God in joy, and as the Bible says…
Let the joy of the Lord be your strength.
God’s grace and peace,
Pastor Matt