Christ is Risen!

Pastor Eric J. Trozzo

April this year is fully in the season of Easter. It is truly a month of celebrating the resurrection. Of course, every Sunday all year long is a celebration of the resurrection, and each day of our lives we live in the good news of new life that we have as we participate in Christ’s resurrection. Yet this April our worship practice specifically focuses on Jesus’ resurrection and the ways that this resurrection life appears in our lives through the church.

With such a focus on new life, it makes it all the more appropriate that the month ends with our celebration of Earth Day. The joy of the resurrection includes the ways that new life in Christ begins now, on our planet and in our lives today. Our world certainly needs the hope of this new life, and it is a good thing to celebrate both the joy of God’s grace and the responsibility to tend the Earth that God has given us. In our communion liturgy we often include duty and joy together, because the resurrection shows us that the two do indeed work together. When God’s Spirit is upon us, we receive God’s guidance with joy because we know how life-giving God’s work is.

This month as we bask in the joy of the resurrection, I invite you into the various activities that we have in this attitude of joyful newness. Come enjoy the gift of music not only in our worship but also in the fellowship event of Matt Wheeler’s concert and at the OWLs meeting. Come find new insights on Christian life in the Pastor’s Class on Tuesday evenings. Find a new sense of the presence of God in your life at our Wednesday evening contemplative prayer time on April 10. In all of these things, see God at work doing new things.