PASTOR’S CORNER

+ CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED! ALLELUIA! AMEN! +

Once again, this month we gather to remember and to celebrate our Lord’s Resurrection from the grip of death. And with this event we rejoice in our Christ’s victory over every form of evil, from the smallest annoyance to the largest threat. We see it, and we feel it – we experience it – as the new growth of Spring literally explodes from the ground. As we recognize that Jesus’ tomb is empty, and that life overcomes death, we notice the trees, which looked so dead, now budding and bringing forth blossoms, and then the leaves and eventually the fruit. Flowers already poke through the remains of the winter snow and ice, and the grass is greening up once more. As impossible as it is to hold back Spring, so is it impossible to hold back Resurrection, as the Jesus of Nazareth becomes the Christ, our Savior – fulfilling the demands of the Mosaic Law and completing the promises of God’s Covenant, begun those many millenia ago through the faith of Abraham.

Death cannot keep its grip on Jesus. He explodes from the grave full of life, and he is life-giving. The life of Jesus that lifts him from death now lives in us who know him. So, it is impossible for death to keep its hold on us, as well! Nothing can keep us in the ground. God’s Word promises, “Listen! I tell you a mystery: we will not sleep, but we will all be changed in a flash, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52)

Through the Season of Lent just past, we have had the chance to reflect and return to the Lord our God. We have seen the new life gifted to those along the way, as Jesus has moved steadily onward toward the appointment with his destiny – truth given by night to a Jewish leader seeking to understand (John 3), the Life-Spring provided to a woman thirsting for it (John 4), the blessing of sight granted to a man needing to see (John 9), the call to a friend to live again (John 11). Great is God’s faithfulness – the God who creates the earth and brings Noah through the flood, who guides Moses as he floats in the Nile and parts the Red Sea, who leads Israel through the wilderness and brings them back home again to the Promised Land, who takes on flesh and is baptized in the Jordan River, who turns water into wine and teaches in the synagogues, who feeds the hungry and lifts up the lowly and heals the weak. This is the God who is rejected by the world he creates, and whose own people turn their backs on him and run away, who stretches out his wide-open arms on a cross and gives himself up for our sake, who brings new life out of death and provides the proof that love is more-powerful than fear, that his righteousness overcomes every sin and every wrong.

This is our God, the one whom we worship and celebrate on this day, who continues to love us, whose compassions never fail us, and who continues to be faithful both now and forever, into all eternity.

Rejoice with me this Easter-time! He gives himself for us – may we give our hearts and our lives to him!

A joyous Easter Season to you!
Pastor Bartos

+ CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED! ALLELUIA! AMEN! +