A message from Pastor Greg
It’s a different holy week journey, isn’t it? Not the pattern we have come to know and love. Yet, I wonder if the isolation and unsettledness, brought to us by COVID-19, might allow us to identify more fully with the disciples in their Thursday night, Friday and Saturday distress. Perhaps this year we can embrace the sense that things are not right in our world as their “world” shattered to pieces with the death of Jesus. Certainly isolation and unsettledness must have been part of their experience in those harrowing days.
I believe that for April 2020 we need a Resurrection Sunday more than ever. A day that reminds us with brilliant spectacle that only our sovereign God has the last word in all “conversations.” That while we may be living “Friday,” “Sunday” is coming! I’m reminded of that great Good Friday meditation offered by S. M. Lockridge, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, San Diego, California (1953-1993). I encourage you to give a listen and thrill to gospel story.
We may feel very much like we’re living a “Friday” life in these days but let me remind you that “Sunday” is coming. That in this Easter we celebrate God’s power that is seen more brilliantly against the backdrop of darkness. I see it in the resolve of those on the front line to stay on the front line. I see it in the calls you are making that affirm caring and love. I see it in the prayer that is being offered, daily, an act of faith in the face of trial. I see it in the promise that the God who brought back to life the lifeless body of Christ has power for us to overcome in these days.
At the end of his masterful exposition on the resurrection of Jesus, found in the 15th chapter of the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul ends with these words:
“The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
Indeed, may this be an Easter where we give thanks to God for the victory of Christ and recommit ourselves to being “salt” and “light” in this world KNOWING that our labor, especially in the days of COVID-19, is not in vain.
Pastor Greg
