Halleluiah! Christ is risen!
Grace and peace to you all from our risen Savior Jesus Christ!
It has been one of my favorite things to quietly stand in front of the bare cross early Easter morning and reaffirm his love for me. Whew! I don’t know how to express those feelings that made me short of breath most of those times. This year was not an exception. Christ came to meet me when I stood there to thank him for his mighty acts of redemption. When I stood there in front of the rugged bare cross, I knew I belonged to him. I believe you have also had similar awesome experiences and met him on this Easter again.
Our Lenten study 2024 has finished successfully. We finally arrived in the city of God after five weeks of journeying through the repentance, justice, peace, and healing. The small number of men and women from both Bethel Presbyterian church and the West Union UMC were amazingly humble and faithful. They came through the snowy and windy conditions faithfully. They shared meals the way Jesus always did with his disciples. They shared the time of meditation, discussion, and adaptation. I was deeply moved by the intensity and sincerity of the participants in each session. The challenging question from the Lenten journey may be, “Now what? We arrived here right. Is this the end of our faith journey?” The answer for that question is in the Word we encountered on Easter.
According to Matthew 28:10, Jesus says “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” Our faith journey never ends until we stand before our God. Until that time comes, we need to go boldly and tell our brothers and sisters to remember their first love in Christ, to remind them to spread the love that Christ freely gave to us to the ones who doesn’t know the true love, and to show them the living God works and lives in, around, and through them and us. Yeah, I admit that there still our brokenness exist, our wounds remain unhealed. However, it is such a comfort to know that Christ’s wounds remain visible in his risen body too. That is enough for us to see tomorrow with hope of better day than today. Don’t you agree? Christ is risen indeed! Halleluiah!
Remain in Hope,
Pastor & Your sister in Christ, Mee
