Yeah! It's Easter

We are a people of light and life

Wow! It is finally here. The church is full of life with Easter decoration as we celebrate the Resurrection.

Yes, it is an odd story and really easy not to believe. The point is that God loves us to the end, no matter how far we wander, no matter how we feel about ourselves. God's love is expressed in the way which we understand as ultimate love, in the most horrendous death on a cross.

This is not what God does, right? That is what people at the time thought. God is high in heaven, steering things from a distance. But they had wandered away from the ideal of social care and justice for all people. Jesus comes to restore that message of God's love and to make clear that ideas of violence, oppression and trampling on the poor are just not God's way.

The crucifixion is hard to understand. There are different ways of seeing it. Some of those ways can make us feel fairly worthless, as if God sees us as basically terrible and we must spend our lives trying to climb out of a pit of darkness in order to get to heaven. I think God sees us as amazing and wonderful and beloved and will go to any lengths to show us that the Old Testament promises have been transformed into a new way of living and loving.

In that light, perhaps the Resurrection makes more sense. Jesus returns and in that return brings us hope that we can let go of ourselves in perfect love. We can die to self and rise to new life in Him. It is a big, big deal. We walk one step at a time. Today as we walk we sing "Alleluia! Christ is Risen", and then we get on with the job of being His body in the world.

Why is Friday Good?

Salvador Dali

Calling the day that Jesus died Good Friday seems counter-intuitive.

There is a hymn by Sidney Carter which many will know called "Lord of the Dance".

One of the verses reads:

I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black

It's hard to dance with the devil on your back,

They whipped and they stripped and they hung me on high

And left me there on the cross to die.

The next verse tells us why it is Good (warning: spoiler alert (as if you didn't know)).

They cut me down and I leapt up high

I am the life that will never, never die.....

God's love and life never stop, even in the darkest of places and our lowest hours. It is only through death that Jesus can bring life. He shows us the way. Most of us are not called to a literal and torturous death but we are called to leave ourselves behind and enter into a world which is full of a heavenly tune and dance steps which fill us but which we do not own.

Walking towards Easter

April 18th is Maundy Thursday. If you usually go from Palm Sunday to Good Friday, or if you do not usually even go to church, why don’t you join us?

The Last Supper by Duccio di Buoninsegna

Maundy Thursday Service.

7pm at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer,

502. W. Sumter Street, Shelby, NC. 28150

Maundy Thursday is the Thursday between Palm Sunday and Easter. On this day we remember Jesus with his Disciples at the Last Supper as he breaks bread with them and washes their feet. In The Gospel of John, Judas makes a dramatic exit into the night to arrange Jesus arrest. After the meal Jesus and his friends go to the Garden of Gethsemane where in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew there is the heart-wrenching story of his prayers as he struggles with what is to come and his Disciples sleep.

Our liturgy (the service which we use) covers all these things as we gather and wash one another’s feet. As we remember our own turning away from God and are offered holy bread and wine in the Eucharist (Communion). Then we move to the Garden, a place set up in Church where we can watch and wait with Jesus for as much of the night as we choose.

It is a beautiful service and can really help us get ready for Easter as we enter into the whole story of the week. You are welcome, no exceptions. If you usually go to another church, we respect that. Feel free to join us anyway, we are offering an open invitation. If you have been rejected or hurt by other churches, you will find a welcome here. We welcome those who are often marginalized without expecting you to sign up for anything or to change who God made you to be.