God isn’t as interested in the sin as he is in replacing with his grace what lies in the depth of our souls that causes us to carry out those thoughts and actions. Confession allows us to set aside those things deep within us that stand between us and God. In Jesus Christ we are forgiven, and God is at immediately at peace with us.
On this Trinity Sunday, we are reminded just how big God is and how he invited Nicodemus to step out into His light. As God has led us from the shadow of the pandemic, let us celebrate this truth and accept this same invitation from Him.
Pentecost marks the occasion on which the baton of faith was passed from Jesus to God. It represented a change in the season of faith for followers of Christ. Likewise, we wish our graduates well as they embrace a new season of their lives and encourage them to call on their faith as they move forward.
Christian community is the heart of who we are as a church. Now is the time for us to reach out to those who have been seeking answers during these trying times and connect them to the vine of Christ. In doing so, we can bear more fruit and achieve more than we could dare ask or imagine.
The Easter season is a time of adjusting to a new perspective. The worst that can happen to us has been overcome by God taking Jesus from the tomb. This new perspective challenges us to live boldly and to love daringly from the heart.
Why did Jesus have to show up with scars to Thomas? He needed Jesus to be so real that the scars were not glossed over as if they didn’t matter. He needed to see that Jesus was still carrying the marks of life on earth. We need those scars to be there, too.
The miracle of Easter has exploded on this day. The heart of the child of God knows it is this loving God who leads us out of all our exiles, whatever they look like, including this pandemic. It is the child of God who will proclaim: He is risen, indeed.
We are all part of the parade of Palm Sunday: a seven-day journey that promises to set us free from sin and death and to never to separate us from the love of Christ. What will you do along the way? Let’s join in, and rejoice in the promise that is to come on Easter Sunday.
What God added through Jesus is grace. Undeserved, unmerited, unearned grace. Through His birth, life death and resurrection, God has given back our lives to us, replacing that which was killing us — the law — with the grace and salvation that is only found in the lifted cross.
God has called us to be in relationship with him and with each other, and that relationship is based on a love which the law by itself cannot know or teach. It’s called grace. It’s the Two Universal commandments: to love God, and to love neighbor.