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April 2019 Church Newsletter Article: Easter!

As I’m writing this, the birds are chirping, and the sun is shining. The sky is a beautiful light blue. It is morning, and it is spring, one of life’s great gifts that all can enjoy. There is the feeling of the fresh and the new.

As I’m writing this, I’m also in the midst of a series of Lenten Bible studies on the passion of Christ, a story that reflects much that is old and stale about our world. What I mean is, the ugliness and violence of the human race manifested in the story. The world has been and continues to be a place of injustice and oppression, a place of self-centeredness and greed, a place of sin.

However, we can endure the ugliness of the story, even as we endured the long winter we had this year, because we know a new day is dawning. Easter is our spiritual springtime. It is a breath of fresh air after the heavy focus on sin and God’s just punishment of our sin.

As Christians we have hope. I really don’t understand how people can have hope without Easter. I think C.S. Lewis is right. Life without Easter is always winter and no spring (see his The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe). Imagine a world without spring. How horrible that would be! Yet, that is precisely the world within which many people live.

Our privilege as Christians is to announce to the world that spring has sprung! A new day has dawned! It began already before Easter in the man Jesus Christ. His whole way of being signaled a new day (even as the chirping birds and busy ants signal things are about to change). Even in the midst of his passion, Christ’s self-surrender to the will of his father signals hope in the midst of horrible injustice. God is really in control and not sinful humanity. God in Christ is breaking the pattern that has held us in bondage for so long.

How can we not celebrate with joy this great gift! How can we not announce it to a world tired of all the bickering and division, tired of all the hatred and evil deeds that spring has spring! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Glory to God in the highest! May God fill you once more with the joy of Easter and may your joy overflow to those around you!

Easter Blessings to you all!

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