April 2007

                     From the Pastor’s Heart  

     April 2007

FROM THE HEART

As we read this, I assume most of us are cognizant that we are in our annual pre-Easter preparation mode – a countdown to Holy Week before Resurrection Sunday when we can add “Alleluia” back into our worship vocabulary.  I was always taught that during Lent we must follow proper Christian etiquette and refrain from saying or singing “Alleluia” – like giving up chocolate or coffee.  The lack of “Alleluias” in our worship is supposed to remind us of our brokenness and disconnectedness from God, so much so that on Son Rise Sunday we are bursting at the spiritual seams to shout and sing, “Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!”

Perhaps I wasn’t stating clearly what I was thinking when I chose to use the term pre-Easter.  I could have, a perhaps should have, used the term pre-Christian.  The reality is that even after 2,000 years we still live in a world where the Easter message hasn’t sunk in yet and where many Christians haven’t accepted the Resurrection blessing nor have they allowed it’s impact to change their lives.

Many Christian authors and theological pundits go on and on about how the sun has set on the era of Christendom and we now live in a distinctly post-modern, post-Christian world.  I disagree, at least with the post-Christian analysis.  I disagree because to all intents and purposes (well, at least in some ways) we are still living a life-style that is pre-Christian and pre-Kingdom.

We are still waiting for Christ to arrive, to transform us, and to usher in the kingdom of grace and glory.  We wait expectantly for God to do the heavy lifting before we put our shoulder to the rock that blocks our path.

We know the story – how Jesus was born in the shadow of the cross, how he ministered in the shadow of the cross and how his image was for three days overtaken by that same shadow.  Each year we wait for Jesus to arrive in Bethlehem as the bearer of the divine promise.  Each year we wait for the shadow of the cross to be vanquished by the glory of the Risen Lord.  So, we need a time of preparation – Advent preceding Christmas and Lent before Easter – so that we can anticipate God breaking into our lives with joyous freshness and newness that washes away our failure and suffering and restores the hope of a better today and tomorrow that can come only from God.

Kingdom hope can, at times, appear to be a dangerously thin thread connecting the present to the future.  We live in such a tenuous and dark world – regional famines, desperate poverty, unspeakable human trauma, violence begetting violence – and we appear powerless to make a lasting, much less permanent, impact on life for the least, the lost and the left-out.  In fact, we are powerless when we rely on ourselves and our human devices to bring light to the dark places of our world.  Only the love and grace of God, experienced through Jesus Christ and implemented through the Holy Spirit can turn shadow into glory.

So, the question is this:  Are you ready to shout and sing “Alleluia”…to celebrate and accept the live-giving and life-transforming love of Jesus Christ in your life?  I am praying that your answer is “yes” and I hope you are praying that my answer is “yes” as well.