“Ponderings from the Pastor”

It’s easy to put ourselves in the place of Jesus’ followers on that first Easter morning.  Their Lord and Savior had been executed and they had witnessed Him breathe His last. Then to add to their misery, word came that his tomb was empty, and His body had simply disappeared. Undoubtedly they, too, were asking “now what?” Simon Peter may have expressed their feelings most succinctly when he stated, “I’m going fishing.” (John 21:3)  In other words, “I’m going back to what I know.”

My friends, as followers of the Resurrected Savior, we cannot let ourselves fall back into our old ways. Many of us are no doubt wondering… maybe even fearful… of “what’s next?” I don’t have the answer to that question, I don’t think ANYONE except God has that answer, however, what I do know is that we cannot simply “go fishing”, we cannot… we MUST not - go back to our old ways. While the pandemic has brought us so much heartache and loss, it has also shown us in frightening detail that we have a lot of work to do to improve - to provide better care for the underserved in our communities, our seniors and others. It is my prayer that whatever the “new normal” is, that we will learn from this latest crisis and move forward with a new spirit.
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You and I have seen many dark days in our lifetimes. We have been knocked down, but each time we have gotten back up. Throughout history dozens of people from Thomas Edison to Vince Lombardi have reminded us that “Life is not about how many times you get knocked down. It’s about how many times you get back up!” The focus of Easter is not on the death of our Lord, but on Christ’s Resurrection! One of my favorite Eastertide hymns (a hymn I can guarantee we will be singing very soon!), contains these words - “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.” Our Heavenly Father has blessed us with a powerful spirit of resilience, in fact God’s Holy Word is filled messages of resilience which made selecting our Life Verse for April even more challenging. But here it is- from II Timothy 1:7, “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.” I want to encourage you to pray for our nation and our world, but most of all for God’s presence with us and for His knowledge to be in us.                          
         

     It’s worth pondering!   

Pastor Bill 

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