HE IS RISEN!
HE IS RISEN INDEED!
ALLELUIA!
Let's start with some "SIDEWALK MINISTRY" going on in our community! this time by our youth! Here is Cylie Ites' first work of art for her neighbors who are walking!
“Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.” - Acts 5:20
What a bold and wonderful message for all! Thanks so much Cylie! We hope for some more sidewalk ministry reports from more of our youth group!
THANKS FOR ALL those who helped make Sunday's Easter celebrations so wonderful. Even the weather made it all the more "fun" and "memorable"! And thanks for joining us!
CHECK OUT REV. HARRISON'S EASTER DEVOTIONS - always a great thing!
Finally: Remember that this evening there is a CONGREGATIONAL VOTER'S MEETING by zoom! Please check your email today for the link. Please continue to pray for our congregation - and all the church of God worldwide - that the empty cross of Christ might draw all people to Himself!
HERE IS THE EASTER MESSAGE PREACHED ON SUNDAY:
He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Moscow, London, Paris, Tokyo, New Delhi, Sidney, Buenes Aries, Pastor Becker in Africa... Mankato... The vast majority of the worlds 7 billion people find themselves this Easter in a lockdown situation. An invisible but violent intruder has invaded the classroom of our lives and is gleeful that all our doors are locked and our hearts are fearful. That is exactly the situation Jesus' disciples found themselves in after the death of their Lord. They huddled in their homes, doors locked, fearing the continued persecution from the Jewish authorities who might be seeking to stamp out any last vestige of Jesus people. And Jesus too had been in lockdown. A large stone had been rolled across the tomb, and another Gospel reports that Pilate ordered guards to stand watch over the tomb because the Jews believed His disciples might do something with His body. But early that morning some of the women had come back from the tomb and informed them that Jesus' body was gone, that someone must have taken him away! John, the one whom Jesus loved, and Peter, still seemingly the leader of the band, took off running for the tomb to see for themselves. They discovered the tomb just as the women told them. Jesus was not there! But they still did not believe anything other than that Jesus' body had been stolen! The two disciples, John says, went home - probably now even more scared. But then separately, Mary Magdelene was at the tomb now, our text explains. She was mourning and weeping at the sight of the empty tomb. And certainly in one of the most touching scenes in all of scripture, Jesus then appears to her. In her vast grief, Mary does not recognize Jesus - until he speaks her name. And in that instant her tears changed from grief to an incomprehensible joy! The one who was dead was now alive! HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED! ALLELUIA! Jesus, indeed, was not on lockdown anymore! He had burst His tomb, and now Mary ran back to the disciples with the astonishing, life changing, world turning upside-down news! "I have seen the Lord!" HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED! ALLELUIA! This assertion of fact, that Jesus indeed has burst His tomb, is the loud proclamation of victory over sin, death, and the devil that Jesus accomplished on the cross. As st. Paul states, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, our faith is dead and worth nothing. But He IS alive! One of the most exciting things to think about is that although you and I "believe" that Jesus died. We make our best profession of faith here on Easter. But think of Mary. Think of those first disciples. When Jesus finally appeared to all of them including Thomas, it wasn't that they just "believed". They KNEW in a first hand kind of way! The proclamation that Jesus was alive was not a statement of belief, it was a statement of fact! He's alive, He's alive, He's alive and I'm forgiven, Heavens gates are open wide. Can you even have the faintest understanding of what it meant to Peter that Jesus was really alive? After promising that he would never deny him, he had denied Jesus three times! Can you imagine what it must have been like to come face to face with the Lord of the Universe who had just burst the tomb? And yet, the implications of love and forgiveness beheld in the resurrection just laid all the shame of his sin away! Jesus was not on lockdown! Jesus had burst his three day tomb! He's alive, He's alive, He's alive and I'm forgiven, Heavens gates are open wide. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is our life. It is not just our belief. It is the true fact! It is central to all of history. Upon it our whole lives rest. St. Paul shouts it from the top of his lungs in our epistle lesson: 3For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures! What about your deepest fears? What about your most fervent dreams? What about your darkest sins? What about pandemics? What about your job? Nothing compares this day, or any day, with the fact that Jesus has risen from the dead! He's alive, He's alive, He's alive and I'm forgiven, Heavens gates are open wide. Who is on lockdown? Not Jesus! He is risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!
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