Easter, I’m sure most of you know, moves around a bit on the calendar. It’s not the same date every year, like Christmas is December 25th, or the fourth of July is, well, the fourth of July – except in Paris, Illinois where it isn’t any more. Easter is determined by a kind of complicated formula, having to do with the first day of Spring and the first full moon after that. […]
I can’t tell you how many people I hear every week talk about how awful and dark the world is now. Focusing on that too much is not good for one’s mental health. The world has always been a dark place. Nature can be cruel. Accidents happen. Loved ones become ill. Human beings sin. That is our reality with the cycle of life and death. Still, hope is so important to hold onto as a Christian people, as is bringing that hope to as many others as we can. Yet, the fact of the matter is that we do hear much bad news, sometimes daily. We may feel bombarded by it. With technology the way it is, at times we know of something minutes after it happens anywhere in the world. We definitely can feel weighed down by it all. […]
The two women who went to visit Jesus’ tomb that first Easter morning are sometimes described as “the first evangelists.” Now they probably wouldn’t have thought of themselves as having a particular title like that, or being “the first” anything. They just had some really exciting news, so of course wanted to share it with their friends who would also be really excited about it: Verse 6 – “He is not here; he has been raised”; verse 8 – “they ran to tell the disciples.” Picture yourself in their situation: wouldn’t you also want to run and tell the other people that loved Jesus that “he is not dead, he is alive”? (since you wouldn’t have your smart phone back then). The Marys would have just considered themselves to be two people who wanted to share great news with their friends. […]
“The Lectionary” is a set of recommended Scripture passages for use in worship on Sunday mornings. The passages often tell stories relevant to the season of the church year we are in; in the weeks leading up to Christmas, for example, we find the verses from the prophets telling of a Messiah to come, and [...]