April 20, 2025
Greetings and blessings to all of you. Happy Resurrection Sunday! Holy week has been full of activities commemorating the days between Psalm Sunday, Good Friday and finally Resurrection Sunday or Easter. That day for Christ has been marked with joy and sadness. He rose from the grave but not before he died a cruel painful death for all of us. The Bible describes the human condition as “dead in your transgressions and sins” (Eph. 2:1), objects of God’s wrath, (Eph. 2:3) alienated from God and enemies of God in your minds (Col.1:21). The Gospel reveals that Jesus is the only way to get us out of our separation from Christ. There was no other way to deal with this problem. On the cross the love of God and the holiness of God intersected. Gods’ holiness demanded judgement against us, but God’s love sent Jesus to pay the penalty in full. In 1 Cor. 1:30 it says, “God has united you with Christ Jesus.” The Resurrection is the Good News. Paul said in 1 Cor. 15:14-19, “and if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. ….and if there is no resurrection of the dead then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. in that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost!! And if our hope is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.” The bodily resurrection of Christ is the center of the Christian faith. Because Christ rose from the dead as he promised we know that what he said is true and that he is God. The Resurrection affirms the truthfulness of Jesus life and words. In John 11:25 the Word says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Because he rose, he lives -and represents us before God. Because he rose and defeated death, we know we also will be raised. An example of this beside Christ was the dead bodies that rose from the tombs and came out of graves after Christ Himself had risen and they went into Jerusalem and appeared to many. A lot of us do not want to believe in the super- natural only the natural. It is a statement of one of the grandest miracles; an example of supernaturalism in the sense that it was completely miraculous. Through the Cross and the Resurrection, we now have peace with God and eternal life. Aren’t you glad?
With the Love of Christ
First Lady Vivian C. Currie
Pastor ALC