”Why are you weeping?”  is the question our Risen Lord asks Magdalene. (John 20). Dressed up in our fashionable Easter finery, it is easy to miss how Easter speaks to our grief.   As we come to this unusual Easter, the Good News comes to us stripped down as it did to those earliest disciples who were scattered and separated on the first Easter. Luke 24 tells us how Jesus comes alongside two traveling disciples who share their heartache, indignation, and dashed hopes with the resurrected yet hidden Lord. Christ is made known in the simple dinner blessing as they break bread together. Jesus vanishes only to appear in another home proclaiming, “Peace be with you!”  

Easter celebrates a transformation. We find newness of life through our Crucified and Risen Lord.  We will gather in new virtual ways this year, trusting that Jesus is already “going ahead of us” and that we will see Jesus in our journeys. (Matthew 28)  I hope you will join us on Belmont’s Facebook Live feed at 10:30am Easter Sunday. Jesus promises to be with us, whenever two or three of us gather together, no matter how we might gather! (Matthew 18:20) 

Our Easter prayer is that the peace of Christ, the fellowship of the Spirit, and the love of God will be with you. We long to see each other’s faces, to lift our voices in congregational songs, and to pass God’s peace face to face. Until that day, let us remember that neither death, distance, nor despair can separate us from the love of God made manifest in our risen Christ (Romans 8). 

Love 

Paul