Dear Visitor,
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
From the first Easter Sunday to the present, Christians have proclaimed the Good News of the Lord Jesus’ ultimate victory over sin, death, and the old evil one. The first disciples were amazed to see with their own eyes the marks of death on Jesus’ resurrected body. Jesus had been dead, executed on a cross by the efficient death machine of the Roman Empire. Jesus had been clearly dead as witnessed by enemies and friends alike. Jesus had been dead and buried, wrapped in linen cloths and anointed with a powerful perfume to mask the smell of death on Him. But on Easter morning, the tomb was empty, because the Lord is risen indeed! And, as St. Paulwrites in 1 Corinthians 15, the Risen Jesus appeared to over five hundred people!
The Christian story is not like a nature myth in which all creation, dormant for the winter, reawakens in spring. The Christian Gospel is not a fairy tale or parable that serves as a kind of emotional palliative to make it easier for humans to face their own deaths and the deaths of loved ones. No, this Christian Gospel is the metanarrative, the great overarching story that offers hope, everlasting life, and salvation to those that are buried and raised with Jesus in the washing of Holy Baptism. His promise in Mark 16:16 is: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.”
Because we believe that Christ is risen (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!), we Christians face the real world and real problems and real heartaches with an irrepressible hope and an unquenchable joy. As a proleptic community anticipating the life of the world to come, Christ’s Church assembles together to be filled again and again with the power of the endless life and love shared by the one true God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We renew our Baptisms daily by confessing that Christ alone can save and help us. In the face of the devil’s empty promises and death’s ugly threats, we remember that our hope in Christ is not for this life only (1 Corinthians 15:19). We know that Christ is alive, and so we, too, will be raised from death.
We are Easter people at St. Matthew’s! Join with us in celebrating Jesus’ resurrection. Because the Lord is risen, His Church rises from the waters of Baptism with the hope of a new life, new love, and new beginnings as Christ’s new family. Death has no more dominion over us. Sin and evil we can laugh at, because Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Thanks for stopping by!
Pastor Sam Zumwalt, STS
szumwalt@bellsouth.net
www.societyholytrinity.org
910-791-4582 x200
Cross in azalea photo by our member Bill Paris. Used with his permission. billparis.zenfolio.com. Greeting cards with this photo may be purchased from the St. Matthew’s Endowment Fund Committee.
