From "If Only" to "What If" -- Changing the Dream

Ten people sat around the table in the church’s Fellowship Hall. Together the members of the church council represented about 25% of the church’s total active membership and about 50-75% of its average weekly worship attendance. Their pastor had just moved on, and they had invited me there to talk about options for pastoral leadership.

I knew that what I was really there to talk about was change.

A Resurrection Stand for Life and Hope

John 20:1-18

Easter Sunday, Year A

This is the day. This is the day that God has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. This is the day that for me is the day is essential to Christianity. This is Easter day. Resurrection Day. Years ago I was in discussion with a friend who wasn’t sure it mattered whether the resurrection really happened. She said "It doesn’t affect my faith one way or the other if it was a historical event." I disagreed.  

I believed then as I do today that without the resurrection, there would be no Christian faith. Without Easter, there is no reason for Jesus to have been anything other than a preacher, a prophet, a rabble-rouser who was crucified by the Romans. Without Easter, there is no reason for Paul and Peter to take the message of Jesus Christ the world outside Jerusalem and Israel. Without Easter, there is no reason for the church.