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Conklin

Conklin-Broad Avenue-North News

April Newsletter                         

Dear friends,

There are many competing views as to what Easter means. Obviously there are those for whom it is nothing more than a season of reawakening – a celebration of spring. Looking for sprouting buds and signs of new life springing from the soil gives us all a little bit of hope that the winter is passed and summer lies before us. Trust me, I love spring as much as anyone and I look forward to it every year but if that were the only source of hope I had then I would have no hope at all.

Others think that Easter is a time to reflect on spiritual realities. That celebration of Easter is a celebration of the indomitable human spirit. They would have us believe that Jesus’ spirit was freed from his body and that we celebrate the hope that someday our spirits will be freed from these very human bodies. That to me is Pyrrhic victory. If my hope is found in some mystical experience of floating through eternity because I have attained to some spiritual heights then I don’t have much hope of ever attaining that level of righteousness.

Contents
Coffee Hour, Lay Leaders, Greeters, Chicken & Biscuit Dinner, Lost Vases
Healing Prayer, Birthdays, Anniversaries
FEED, Communion, Holy Week Activities
Golf Tournament, Sr. YIs, Sr. YI Reunion, Deadlines
Wycliffe Bible Translators
St. Pauly Textiles, Women of Faith Trip, Ink Cartridge Fund Raiser
Broad Ave. North

The real and genuine hope that we have is in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. This was the hope that caused cowards who abandoned Jesus at the cross to be willing to give up their lives to proclaim the reality of the One who died and now was alive. John talks about the One whom he saw and touched. Thomas was given the opportunity to put his hands in the wounds that Jesus bore. Just as certainly this resurrection body was one that they recognized as the same Jesus they saw die on the cross. It was certainly a physical body because time and again the resurrected Jesus ate with his disciples. Yet, it was something more as well. Jesus’ body wasn’t constrained by walls or doors and he could move from place to place with alacrity.

Paul, who met the resurrected Jesus last of all, talks of the resurrected body as being something akin to a miraculous new growth: like the acorn becomes the oak. What will be for us bears near comparison with what we know now but it bears even greater contrast. That is hope. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is a sign to us that death is not the foe we once thought it to be. It is not the ultimate victor. The wages of sin is death and those wages have been paid in full by the crucified Jesus. Death has no hold over us! Like acorns planted in the ground our bodies will be redeemed beyond our hopes. Because Jesus lives we too shall live! Not some amorphous spirits floating in time and space but the best of who we are. We will know and we will be known in our transfigured selves. We will love and be loved in our best selves.

Because of Easter we have reason to hope: a real, genuine, attainable hope of an eternity of joy, peace and love. Because Jesus died for us we can live with Him!

No wonder the word of the day is Hallelujah! Thanks be to God!

In Christ’s love,

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