Several clergy in the Lakeside area were kind enough to offer us some of their thoughts about Easter and its importance to Christians and the community in general. Find them below.
The scriptures are filled with testimony of the fact that God loves us. He spared Noah and his family because He loved His creation, man. The Psalms are filled with references to God’s love for His people. David says of God “His love stands forever…” The prophet Joel tells us “He is abounding in love.” The Gospels are the “Good News” of God’s love. Everyone knows John 3:16, “For God so loved the world…”
On Good Friday we share the painful details of the suffering and death of Jesus to pay for man’s sins. Then and there He paid the price for all who had sinned. He became the sacrificial lamb without blemish who was offered up for all. It was a dark day in many ways.
But Easter is our day. It is a happy day. When Jesus died, we had not sinned so He could not pay the debt we had not yet incurred. It was His resurrection that made His sacrifice eternally effective. It was that resurrection that made His sacrifice payment for our sins. It is that resurrection that we celebrate today. It is for that empty tomb that we give thanks.
Yet, saying “Thank You” to God is not enough. The Bible tells us God knows our thoughts. Nor is it enough to try to live a good life. Many people do that without ever making a profession of faith. Even making an effort to show others that God is love falls short of the mark.
When God fills our hearts with His love, when we realize the loving sacrifice God made through His son Jesus, when we understand the importance of that first Easter, doing these things; praying, worshipping, living a life that reflects God’s love does not become our duty. It becomes our privilege.
From this day forward, we should exercise and enjoy that privilege.
Rev. Gene Raymer,
Pastor, The Little Chapel by the Lake
It’s widely known that anthropologists have never found a culture that didn’t have some form of religion. But it’s less widely known that virtually every culture also has had a sense that there is something wrong with humanity!
The Bible and the Christian faith tell us what it is that’s wrong with us – the thing that causes our lives to be full of pain and grief, brokenness and loss, confusion and meaninglessness. And that brokenness is because we were created for relationship with God, but we’re separated from that relationship because of sin. We are kept from the only relationship that can give us true satisfaction by the sin which has infected the deepest being of every person.Many people think they can overcome this problem by doing good deeds – trying to be a good person – and so many of us go through life piling up good deeds in the hopes it will help. But the spiritual cancer of sin cannot be removed by doing good deeds, any more than physical cancer will be cured by being nice to your neighbors. In fact, by our own power there is nothing we can do to make ourselves whole again.
Easter is when we Christians celebrate the fact that God, knowing humanity could do nothing to heal ourselves, took action to draw us back to Himself through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We celebrate the fact that we can, by the grace of God, once again find meaning through relationship with God the Father, through the grace provided by God the Son on the cross.
So when you wonder what the BIG purpose of your life is, remember this – you were made for relationship with God, and that relationship is what you desire above all else, whether you realize it or not. And Jesus – by his sacrificial death and resurrection – makes that relationship possible again, if you will only receive it.
Because of Jesus, and especially because of his death and Resurrection some 2000 years ago, you can be assured that if you will accept this great gift from God everything will be alright. Both now and forever.
Pastor Ross Arnold,
Lakeside Presbyterian Church
The light dims with each day of Holy Week. The triumphal entry of Palm Sunday gives way to nighttime shadows and mounting apprehension in the Upper Room on Thursday, the deepening darkness of the nighttime mock trial and execution of Jesus, and the blackness of His entombment. That, they thought, was that.
But out of the blackness of death, defeat and abandonment, a spark is kindled, the light of life springs back into being, the Paschal Candle is lit, and the Church’s “Alleluia!” proclaim that the last Word belongs to God, and that Word is Jesus, alive and with us.
For the full Fifty Days of Easter the Paschal Candle will burn in our midst, its bright, persistent flame a radiant reminder that in every darkness light is breaking into our lives. Even when darkness is all around us, and even though our pain is real and our frustrations sharp, and in spite of loss and even in the midst of death, light is breaking in.
This is the meaning of Easter: that God’s Love breaks into our dark lives to forgive and heal, to restore and bless, to renew and cherish. By that generous Love we are freed from the dark limitations of all that is mean and selfish, petty and diminishing. Through that generous Love we are set free once again to step out of the darkness of sin and take our proper place as part of God’s creation. Where yesterday there was only the dry memory of loss and death, today there is the witness of new life.
Christ’s victory over the grave and sin and death shines a lighted path through our darkness. With the Light of Christ before, behind, within, and around us, we can walk boldly in the midst of life, for the Light of life is with us, “and in that Light of life we’ll walk, ‘til pilgrim days are done.”
Father Winston Welty,
Rector, St. Andrew’s
Anglican Church
Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. This is a classic truism. It reminds me of the speculation about the infant in the womb who is told about life “outside.” Sounds scary to the yet unborn who declares that life is fine just where it is! This is the way a lot of people think about eternal life and resurrection. A new chance to run races, watch football, go fishing, or just hang out with friends. In other words, it will be an extension of life as they know it, but without inconveniences like sickness and having to go to work (unless your job is really one you like!).
This is not what Jesus is offering us. In his resurrection which he wants to share with us, we are offered a new kind of life altogether. What God gives to us in Christ is a New Creation. Reinterpreting Isaiah 64:4, St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2:9—“No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.”
In this same letter, St. Paul tries to express in human words the truth about the resurrection. He writes in 15:44, “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, ‘the first man, Adam, became a living being’; the last Adam (Christ) became a life-giving spirit.” A little later, in verse 50, he continues, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”
If you have been put off of Christianity with the thought of a promise of the “same old thing,” or perhaps playing harps while riding on clouds, reconsider! Whatever else it might be, it certainly won’t be boring. We have the promise of a whole new kind of existence, of excitement without end. All it costs is death to self and the acceptance of the resurrected life that is offered.
Father Danny Borkowski,
Vicar, Christ Church Anglican
Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth after his having been crucified and buried.
But that is not what I want to talk about. I certainly celebrate the resurrection of Jesus by putting all my hope in him. I also celebrate that Jesus was the first of many to be raised from the dead (1Corinthians 15:20) – not to live here on earth. But, those who put their hope in Jesus (instead of themselves) as Savior are promised resurrection. And the Bible says that those who have been resurrected and who will be resurrected are all of the same family. So, on this Resurrection Day, I celebrate my kinfolks who live in Heaven. Some of them I have never met and some of them I share no DNA with other than that of Jesus (Ephesians 3:14-15).
Brother Bob Hendrick,
Pastor, Lake Chapala Baptist Church