"But the Angel said to the women, Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified . He is not here: for he has been raised, as he said."

April Greetings,

There is something going around social media that is saying that Jesus is staying dead this year.

I can understand the sentiment, the uncertainty. At this writing, I don't know what our Easter celebration is going to look like. Will we be having Easter service? What is going to happen to all our plans: our guest harpist, our sunrise breakfast, our children's Easter egg hunt........our celebration of Christ's marvelous Resurrection????

We may be celebrating Easter very differently this year. But one thing I am certain of; Easter will happen, Jesus will rise from the dead and we ultimately will become stronger as a community because of our faithfulness and our cohesiveness as a fellowship of believers .

In times such as these, it is easy for the naysayers and disbelievers to uplift their so called 'evidence' that there is no God, for how could a loving God bring down such a plague upon nations????

Where is God in all this?

In Patrick Glynn's book, "God, The Evidence", this former atheist states this: 

"The past two decades of research have overturned nearly all the important assumptions and predictions of an earlier generation of modern secular and atheist thinkers relating to the issue of God. Modern thinkers assumed that science would reveal the universe to be ever more random and mechanical; instead it has discovered unexpected new layers of intricate order that bespeaks an almost unimaginably vast master design. Modern psychologists predicted that religion would be exposed as a neurosis and outgrown; instead, religious commitment has been shown empirically to be a vital component of basic mental health......Health has been shown to have spiritual underpinning. And, dogmatically, science and philosophy assumed that reason could never encounter evidence of a soul. But the application of modern research techniques to near-death studies has produced compelling data that no alternative hypothesis could explain."

Sometimes we just have to uplift the tangible evidence while we await the Good News. Sometimes our human condition requires that we have something perceptible to touch.

Perhaps the day will come when we never have any doubts concerning God's love for us. Perhaps a day will come when we are never have to face denial and disbelief, as the disciples did upon being told that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Perhaps the day will come when we don't need 'evidence' because we know deep within our very being, that we are God's own, and that God is God, and we need not ever be afraid.

Easter Blessings

Rev Janet