Greetings to the Easter People of God!
“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.” Pope John Paul II
This quote by the late Pope John Paul II reminds us that the hope of resurrection can dispel our despair. Jesus proclaimed that truth on the day of his resurrection as he sought out his fearful followers. The disciples were afraid of what the death of Jesus might mean for them. They were locked in their own tomb of fear, uncertainty, and despair. But the resurrected Jesus moved into their locked room, stood among them, and spoke words of peace and calling.
21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. (John 20).
To be an Easter people is to receive the Holy Spirit and live in the hope and power of resurrection. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection reminds us that we can live in hope even in the face of our own suffering, death, and despair. The events of the world, and our own life, might discourage us, cause us to fear, disillusion us, take away our joy of life, or even take our life. But the Spirit of God will carry us forward and raise us to new life. And the Spirit of God will empower us to extend God’s love, light and resurrection hope into every dark place where we are sent to go.
To be Easter people is to live with a wonderful hope. Christ destroyed death for all of us! What happened in Jesus, will happen for all of us… and for all the world. To be Easter people is to know that in the end all will be well and resurrection and new life will come!
20 But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died. So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. 22 Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. (1 Corinthians 15)
In the end, God’s will, not ours, is done. In the end love and life is the victor. Death, despair fear, pain is not the end. The end is life!
The Brazilian writer and journalist Fernando Sabino (1923–2004) wrote, “In the end, everything will be [all right]. If it’s not [all right], it’s not the end.”
That good news is worth a Hallelujah, and it is a song worth singing in and for the world!
Pastor Ray