Monthly Message | March

Christ is risen! Al…

Wait, we can’t say (or write, I guess) the “A” word until the end of March and Easter Sunday. Until then, we continue on in Lent.

That is the odd thing about the season of Lent. We know the cross isn’t the end. We know Jesus endured tremendous suffering and pain, and He died. But that wasn’t the end, as we know. Yet, it is during this season of Lent, more than other time of year, when our focus usually is on the cross and Jesus’s passion — His suffering and death. That focus especially comes to the forefront during Holy Week, which begins with Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We celebrate that day on Palm Sunday, which is March 24 this year.

As part of this year’s Palm Sunday worship, we will read and hear texts from the gospels about things that happened and what Jesus did and said during the three days leading to Maundy Thursday and the evening of the Last Supper and His arrest. The hope is that through scripture we can sense a little the rising tensions and emotions surrounding that week in Jerusalem and with Jesus and His followers. Those rising tensions ultimately lead to Jesus’s arrest and crucifixion.

On Maundy Thursday (March 28), worship is at 7pm, and on Good Friday (March 29) worship also is at 7pm. During Good Friday worship we will hear the last seven things Jesus said on the cross before His death. 

I invite you on this Holy Week journey, if you will. I invite us to come together to hear accounts of what happened those days, to worship on the night when we remember Jesus’s final meal with all of His disciples as He gives them a new commandment, to be with one another on the night we remember His death — a death He suffered because of and for us. And after all of that, we come together that glorious Sunday morning to proclaim that He is risen!

During one of my messages in February I mentioned how we can’t just go right to Easter Sunday, taking a detour that takes us away from the cross. For Jesus to get to resurrection, He knew He needed to go through those hard and tense-filled days in Jerusalem — knowing His closest friends would leave Him or betray Him, knowing He would endure incredible suffering, knowing He would die a torturous death.

While we know Jesus’s story didn’t end on that cross, we know that the cross is part of that story — part of our story with Jesus.  As we continue on this month and conclude Lent, I pray you know (or continue to know) the depths of God’s love for you. Jesus endured those events of that Holy Week for us, not to make us feel guilty or a sense of eternal obligation, but to bring us mercy and to show us that depth of love He has for you, for each of us. To show us that we have life — new life — with God each day. 

Go in peace. Christ is risen! Al….

Pastor David