After 17 weeks of online worship services, the longest consecutive stint to date, Union Church celebrated in-person worship on Easter Sunday with a 7am sunrise service. Although we also continued online worship services, it was exciting to celebrate the risen Lord together in-person on Easter Sunday.
Easter - my favourite time of year. Easter is filled with hope, it offers new life, new beginnings and a powerful reminder that through the resurrection, God has a plan and is in control. In his book Surprised by Joy, N.T. Wright stated, “Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven.” Interesting, Easter - “the beginning of God’s new project” - I wonder, what will that mean for us at Union Church?
God makes all things new. Therefore,
“Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.
It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?
There it is! I’m making a road through the desert,
rivers in the badlands…
I provided water in the desert,
rivers through the sunbaked earth,
Drinking water for the people I chose,
the people I made especially for myself,
a people custom-made to praise me.” Isaiah 43:17-20 MSG
Barbara Brown Taylor stated, “…Easter is the reminder that you never know where life is going to come from next, and there's no sense being attached to the day before yesterday because the day before yesterday is dead, and today something is alive."
We are an Easter people. May we individually and collectively experience that new life in fresh ways.
Blessings, Pastor Michele