NEWS

This weekend, Believers all over the world will take time to remember Christ’s death and resurrection. However, this year, there will be a very different feel to Easter as we typically know it. Perhaps our world today will help us connect a bit better with the disciples during that first Easter.

Only a short time before Jesus was crucified, his disciples had to have thought that their time had finally arrived. Jesus arrived at Jerusalem to a King’s coronation. The people were solidly behind them. The revolt of the Jews against the Romans was surely going to happen, and their lives were about to change for the better.

It seems to present an interesting parallel for the last month or so. The stock markets were at an all-time high. It was hard to make a bad investment. Spring was just around the corner. Everything was shaping up to be a great summer of prosperity and relaxation.

Then everything changed!

What was once normal, now seems like a distant memory. The eager anticipation to a great summer has been replaced by doubts, fears and, perhaps, a touch of panic. I suspect it was much the same for the disciples. Their three-year journey with Jesus literally vanished before their eyes. The anticipation of better days was replaced with doubts, fears, and abandonment.

Yet, out of the unthinkable, came the remarkable. From doubt to belief. And through death, came everlasting life! That is the message of Easter. God’s great love for a fallen people, a people filled with doubts, fear, and despair. God’s great sacrifice driven by a covenantal love, now extended to all people. The result for you and for me is the confident hope that can only be found in Christ Jesus.

A Confident Hope has been our theme for this 2019-20 year, I leave you with Romans 5:1-5 as we celebrate Easter:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Rob Reimer

President