Easter Sunday April 12, 2009

Well, Holy Week is here again. It's almost Easter again. This is a mixed bag for me. Working at a church, that means MUCH more work. There's the traditional Good Friday Hike with the youth and the Sunrise Service. So, Easter is a LLLOOOONNNNNGGGG day. Sort of like Christmas Eve. Hmmm. I think I see a pattern here.

By the way, check this post at Palabras de Deb. The photos are beautiful, but the story is also pretty interesting. The plants were planted almost 15 years ago and the yard has been neglected. Yet the flowers come up in the spring. Does this tell us something about the inevitability of resurrection?

This image from the stations of the cross is awesome. It is from Cheryl Lawrie's blog.

Christine Sine makes some thought-provoking comments about NT Wright's thoughts on the resurrection:
In his recent book Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, NT Wright asserts that Christianity’s most distinctive idea is bodily resurrection. After his resurrection, Jesus was a flesh and blood person and Wright contends that we will be too. He further argues that if we truly believe this than it will impact the way we live our lives now. If God intends to renew all of creation and all of life in order to bring a new kingdom of love and wholeness into being - a process already begun in the resurrection of Jesus - then our responsibility as Christians is to anticipate this renewal by working for hope and healing in today’s world. So how can we learn to live as wide-awake people, as Easter people?… In particular if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up…. If Calvary means putting to death things in your life that need killing off if you are to flourish as a Christian and as a truly human being, then Easter should mean planting, watering, and training up things in your life (personal and corporate) that ought to be blossoming, filling the garden with color and perfume and in due course bearing fruit” (Surprised by Hope p293)

The good news of the gospel is that we don’t need to wait to see this new world of God’s wholeness and love come into being. As NT Wright asserts, the point that all the gospels make is that : Jesus is risen, therefore God’s new world has begun. Jesus is risen, therefore Israel and the world have been redeemed. Jesus is risen, therefore his followers have a new job to do. And what is that new job? To bring the life of heaven to birth in actual, physical earthly reality.”

Christine also gives a good post explaining how Jesus spent 3 days in the tomb, when the crucifixion was on Friday, and the resurrection on Sunday. Check it out.

Easter worship at The Refuge will feature great music and what I think will be a meaningful message and meditation time. Join us at 9:30 or 11:00. The worship bulletin is here.

Cornerstone music from last Sunday (April 5, Palm/Passion Sunday) is here.