Friends,
As we near Easter Sunday, it has been a blessing to follow Jesus’ teachings and path to the cross together — this year through the Gospel of John. In this Lenten season we have journeyed through Christ’s temptations, his suffering, frustration, and grief. This Sunday as we begin Holy Week, we will study his triumphant return to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, his Last Supper with his Disciples where one will be revealed as his betrayer on Maundy Thursday, and celebrate his resurrection on Easter with a brunch and egg/scavenger hunt prior to service.
So often we think of Easter as just one Sunday, but it is actually a type of season, one which lasts seven weeks, spanning the 50 days from the Sunday of the Resurrection to Pentecost Sunday and encompassing the festival of the Ascension of the Lord. This is a time when we celebrate new life and the conquering of sin and death!
This is also called the week of Sundays, and the Companion to the Book of Common Worship describes it like this:
“For seven weeks, a week of Sundays, we acclaim the resurrection of Christ by the power of God. The period of seven weeks of jubilation can be traced back to its Jewish roots of the fifty days celebrated from the day after Passover to Shavuot (Feast of Weeks, Exodus 23:16). For Jews, the Feast of Weeks closed the season of harvest, which had been initiated by the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In a similar manner, early Christians observed a fifty-day period of celebration from Easter to the Day of Pentecost. To underscore the uninterrupted rejoicing of these fifty days, fasting and kneeling in prayer were forbidden at least as early as the end of the second century. On the pentecoste (“fiftieth”) day, not only was the fifty-day period concluded, but a festival with its own proper content was celebrated. The Jews observed a feast of covenant renewal and eventually commemorated the giving of the Law. Christians celebrated the gift of the Spirit as preparing the way for the day of the Lord. What Moses and the Law did for the Jewish community, the Holy Spirit now does for the community of Christ.”
As we celebrate together, let us meditate on the fact that Jesus did not simply save us from death, but he gave us a path to live in this world fully transformed by the power of God’s love and the leading of the Holy Spirit! This is the good news of Jesus Christ, one that we are called to share with all creation!
May the Shalom of God be realized in our time!
Pastor Amie