in the mean time there’s Easter

I’m still working on a response (in my head) to the emails I received concerning discipleship movements.  But in the meantime, you’ve had Easter.  We’ll have it here on 27 April.  Actually, at Nicosia International Church we celebrate the resurrection twice – once with the Western Church (last week) and once with the Eastern Church (end of April).  Of course it would be more accurate to say that we celebrate Easter every Sunday. o christos anesti.

This past Sunday we looked at the resurrection account from Matthew’s gospel, chapter 28:1-10.  We talked about how the fact of the resurrection – another example of God taking the initiative to break into human history – changes everything.  We talked a lot about hope – an increasingly foreign concept in the West.  We looked at the emotions experienced in that short time: sadness, fear, joy.  And we looked at the responses: worship and telling others the Good News.  It was interesting to note that the first preachers were women.  The two Mary’s were given the charge to proclaim the Good News to the disciples. (So much for silencing women preachers, I guess!)

Here’s an interesting snippet from Rowan Williams’ Easter message.  I encourage you to take the time to read it and even check out the full article here.

The vital significance of the Church in this society, in any human society, is its twofold challenge – first, challenging human reluctance to accept death, and then challenging any human acceptance of death without hope, of death as the end of all meaning. Death is real; death is overcome. We are mortal, and that is basic to who and what we are as humans. But equally we are creatures made so as to hear the call of God, a call that no power in heaven or earth can silence. That conviction is the foundation of all we say about human dignities and rights, and it is the heart of our Easter hope. The gospel, by insisting on both our limits and our eternal hope in God, safeguards equally the humility and realism we need for mature human life and the sense of a glory embodied in our mortality because it has been touched by God. Death is real; death is overcome. On that basis we claim to have a word to speak to our world that can renew every corner, every aspect, of our humanity.