"I just want to celebrate another day of livin'
I just want to celebrate another day of life
I put my faith in the people, and the people let me down
So I turned the other way and I carry on, anyhow."
("I Just Want to Celebrate", Rare Earth)
March gives us both Lent and Easter. We know that Easter has special appeal in our culture. It is a time, along with Christmas and Mother's Day, when our worshiping congregation is larger than at any other time of the year. It is great to celebrate this defining moment in the Christian story of Jesus' resurrection. It is clean and pure and powerful.
However, Easter is surrounded in Scripture and in our congregational life with all kinds of opposing forces and actions. Our Lenten sermon series and adult Sunday School class are organized around Mosaic: When God Uses All the Pieces by Shane Stanford. How God uses our restlessness, regret, rejection, responsibilities, resources and rage to make a masterpiece in Christ challenges us to find strength for living in the face of severe contradictions.
Jesus, in his life, death and resurrection, becomes God's other way to turn and re-turn to the Source of Life as we face the opposing forces of sin, despair and disappointment. Such love and power come to us packaged as "old hope."
How often have you used hope early or preemptively to avoid difficult passages in your journey? Such as, "Oh, I hope that doesn't happen to me..."
Instead of this early, untested hope, God gives us hope that comes after passing through the complications and contradictions of our existence.
And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings,
knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope,
and hope does not disappoint us,
because God’s love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us (Romans 5:3-5)
Thank God, we can celebrate, appreciate all our days of life, and hope together in the surpassing power of love and forgiveness that God gives to the world in Jesus Christ. Let God raise Christ in your contradictions and broken pieces.
Holy Week Schedule
Palm/Passion Sunday, March 24: 9:30 am Sunday School for all ages; 10:30 am Worship
Maundy Thursday, March 28: 7:00 pm Worship with Open Communion
Good Friday, March 29: 9:30 am United Methodist Women's Breakfast; 7:00 pm Worship
EASTER SUNDAY, March 31: 8:30 am and 10:30 am Worship services with light breakfast served between services; No Sunday School
