Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

Happy Easter! With the celebrations of Easter Sunday, we begin our 50-day celebration of Eastertide which climaxes on Pentecost Sunday. Eastertide focuses on how the church understands itself and its faith in the resurrected Christ now that he has returned to the Father and is no longer physically present. During this time, the first of our weekly readings each week appointed by the lectionary will come from the Book of Acts instead of the Hebrew scriptures. The Book of Acts, written by the same author as the Gospel according to Luke, documents the life of the early church in the days, months and years immediately after Christ’s ascension.  These early Christians wrestled with living in resurrection hope according to Christ’s teachings. They struggled with figuring out what their community should look like, how to love each other, who can become Christians (Can Gentiles and if so what do they have to do?) and what they thought the basic tenets of faith in Jesus Christ were.

Two thousand years later, some of the details and the context may have changed, but in many respects the church still wrestles with these same questions. In fact, in this “post-Christian” era, when going to church every Sunday is no longer the norm, we may be closer to the early church than we think. As we journey through Eastertide, I invite you to look for parallels between the early church and where we find ourselves today, ask the questions they asked in our contexts and perhaps glean some wisdom from our ancestors in the faith.

​Many thanks to everyone who served during our Lenten Season, during Holy Week and as part of our Easter Celebrations. So many people helped preparing and performing music, cooking soup, weeding the labyrinth, leading in worship, running the Zoom, coordinating the brunch, cooking casseroles and baking muffins…the list goes on. Thank you, thank you. 

​Blessings to you all for a joyous Eastertide,
Pastor Sue.