Dear Friends

 

Greetings in the name of Jesus!  As I write this, many of us have begun our 28-day Dynamite Prayer experiment to invite God’s resurrection power into our lives and the life of our church this Lent. We have asked God to break through our regular routines, our regular kind of thoughts, words, deeds and actions to focus on what God is trying to say to us in new ways. It’s a powerful way to pray that increases our faith and transforms the world as new inspiration and hope is unleashed by God’s Spirit.

 

We will conclude our Dynamite Prayer experiment on Saturday, April 12th. The next day is Palm Sunday when we begin to consider the events of Jesus’ life that changed the world.  We will journey from Christ’s triumphal entry in Jerusalem to the last Supper on Maundy Thursday, to the cross on Good Friday, and then the empty tomb on Easter morning.  These special services lead us to contemplate what Christ has done for us.

 

Our prayer experiment for Lent along with Holy Week will lead us to remember that Easter changes everything about how we view God’s power.  Before the death and resurrection of Jesus, God’s people might have thought about the Lord’s power in terms of creation, or the miracles God performed in delivering the Israelites out of Egypt.  As Christians, we think about the amount of power displayed in raising Jesus from the dead.  It is amazing to think about that same power being available to us today through God’s Spirit.

 

Easter changes a lot of things.  For instance, a frightened group of disciples were transformed into people used by God to change the world.  All because of the resurrection power of God’s Spirit! Because the resurrection of Jesus took place on the first day of the week, Christians worship on Sunday instead of the Jewish sabbath day of Saturday.  All because of the resurrection power of God’s Spirit!

 

The changes brought by the resurrection will be focus of our sermons beginning on April 20th. Easter Sunday will give us the opportunity to reflect on the story of Peter’s vision in Acts 10.  In the time following Christ’s resurrection and the Day of Pentecost, God moved in miraculous ways through the apostles.  They became powerful witnesses of the risen Lord.  The way they viewed faith had changed.  God had also transformed the ways they viewed others.

 

The changes brought by Christ’s resurrection will be the focus of the sermons on the Sundays after Easter.  We will look at a portion of the apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia, which reveal how the risen Lord changed Paul’s life and can change ours as well.  It is my hope that God’s power will become real to each of us throughout Lent and into Easter!

 

Blessings,

Pastor Keith