Our community has lived in the question “who do you say Jesus is?” over the last 5 weeks. We hope you have moved toward greater clarity in answering this question for yourself and for watching over others in love as they seek answers for themselves. Very soon, our celebration of Easter Sunday will bring this series to a close. We walk intentionally toward that day but not before we pause to attend both Maundy Thursday March 29 6:30pm in Fellowship Hall and Good Friday 7:00 pm in the Sanctuary. Easter Sunday is March 31, 6:30 am Sunrise in McKinley Park Rose Garden & 10:30 am in the Sanctuary of Central UMC
Our Easter worship will be rooted in Luke 24.1-12.
Barbara Brown Taylor writes: “The resurrection is the one and only event in Jesus’ life that was entirely between him and God. There were no witnesses whatsoever. No one on earth can say what happened inside that tomb, because no one was there. They all arrived after the fact. Two of them saw clothes. One of them saw angels. Most of them saw nothing at all because they were still in bed that morning, but as it turned out that did not matter because the empty tomb was not the point.” Jesus has risen. Shocking and unexpectedly, he rose from the place where they laid him into new life.
The challenge before each of us as we move toward Easter is to acknowledge the death that is in our own lives and the way in which we, too, must rise out of that death.
Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics invite us into the new life that awaits beyond the empty tomb when he sings “Come on up for the Rising” and with the softest of echos in the background accompanies it with “Dream of Life” We all dream of a life in which we love and are loved beyond and through the mistakes and missteps that we make.
Marcus Mumford sings it this way: “It seems that all my bridges have been burned, but you say that’s exactly how this Grace thing works. It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart, but the welcome I receive with the restart.”
Questions for the week ahead:
Who we say Jesus is at this moment shapes the way we might follow him and rise into our new life. What must you experience in order to move forward? What must you trust to move forward from death into life? What new life do you long to experience that is enabled by your work in knowing who Jesus is?
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