Easter: A Season of Transformation!

“Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he (Jesus!) had said these things to her.” —John 20:18

Easter is not a holiday with candy and eggs, or a dinner table set with baked ham and candied yams. Easter is a moment of transformation in the human heart, when one’s mind and attitude are changed. Mary went to the tomb, weeping, expecting to anoint a dead body. Instead she met Jesus, alive in the form of one resurrected to eternal life with the Father, and her weeping turned into joy. And although it would not have been “her place” in those days and at that time for a woman to bring the men the good news about Jesus, it was exactly the right place and the right time for Mary to spill over with the good news that she had seen the Lord, and that everything he had told the Disciples would be coming true, beginning with the amazing fact that he had risen just as he had predicted.

On Easter morning, I introduced a song to the “sunrise” congregation called, “Ev’ry Morning Is Easter Morning,” written by Richard Avery and Donald Marsh, two church musicians from New Jersey. With powerful phrases of affirmation like, “I am one of the Easter people: my new life has begun,” the writers invite us to a new way of living.

I invite you to let Easter happen in your life. Make Easter “a season of the heart’ rather than a day to put on our “Sunday best” and dine on ham and sweet rolls. Consider that Jesus Christ is alive forevermore, and then ask yourself, how does that change everything? How am I different because Jesus is alive? How is the world different because God lives forever and love never dies and we are all invited to come through the gates of eternal life, beginning here and now? How are you different because you have received that invitation?

Only you can answer that question for your life! I can tell you that the answer I give for my life is making all the difference. And I pray that the same will be true for you. I look forward to meeting you at the church door, or wherever we share ministry together.

Grace and Peace! "Pastor Paul"