Love Wins!

John 20:1-18

I don't know about you, but Easter is incomplete for me if I have not gone through the depths of the story that precedes Easter: Jesus' last supper with his friends, his doubts in Gethsemane, Judas' betrayal, Jesus' confrontation with the temple authorities, King Herod, and Pilate, his journey carrying his own cross, his last words, his death, and the sorrowful task of his friends carrying his body to its resting place.

I think Christianity in America can tend to focus more on the victory without paying enough attention to the struggle that got us there. But isn't the glory of that Easter sunrise sweeter when we have passed through the nights that come before that dawn?

All of us have passed through struggles to get where we are today. I want to invite you to honor the struggle in our shared faith story by not skipping the days where we tell the less pleasant part of our story this week. Join us on Maundy Thursday where we will come together over a meal to reflect on the love Jesus showed during the last supper he had with his friends. And then join us on Good Friday, ironically named, to behold again the story of Christ's passion as it is told in the gospel of John.

And then I invite you to find some time on Saturday to pray. It doesn't have to be long, but pray in the way an expectant mother prays. Saturday marks the empty time of grief between Jesus' death and his resurrection from the tomb. Saturday is a day of waiting and hope intermingled with grief. You could choose to fast on Saturday, or take a meditative walk. Whatever you do, I invite you to do something that reminds you of the Holy on that day so that when Easter comes, we can all come together to celebrate the glory and victory of Christ's defeat of death. We can all come together to proclaim that Love Always Wins!

Following Resurrection Sunday, we will be pivoting to a new worship series theme for Eastertide--the time between Resurrection Sunday and Pentecost--called "Emerge." We are emerging as a faith community in so many ways and this time between Easter and Pentecost we will be exploring what we can learn about ourselves by exploring the symbolism found in the act of a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.

Stay tuned during this time for information about an opportunity to come together and explore how we can best ride the wave of our emergence to become a congregation of vitality and relevance in our community!