Sharing the Promise of Easter – All Year Long…

Thank you to all who helped make St. Luke’s Easter so wonderful: Altar Guild, Brass, Camera Techs, Children Ministers, Choir, Communion Assistants, Greeters, Jubilee, Lectors, Sound Techs, Staff, Treat Hosts and Providers, Video Techs, Ushers, Welcome Desk Hosts, Worship Assistants, and all the Members who welcomed those who joined us in Worship. It was a grand day! Glory to God!

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

Easter is generally the strongest attendance day of the year. Sadly, one of the lowest attendance days of the year is the Sunday after Easter.

“The Roman Catholic Church has a name for each Sunday of the calendar year. Want to guess what they call the Sunday after Easter? Low Sunday. It was renamed by Pope John Paul II in 2000 to “Divine Mercy Sunday.” That was a good call for JP2. Every pastor in America is praying for Divine mercy on the Sunday after Easter – that people will return. There are at least seven such events every year…call[ed]…the seven deadly Sundays. They are the Sundays after: Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Super Bowl Sunday and the two time-change Sundays.” wrote Pastor Phil Spry in his article, “The “Seven Deadly Days of Preaching” Churchplants.com.

He continued, “Let me suggest: First and foremost, keep in mind that God is sovereign in all places and at all times.”

The problem is that Easter, as well as Christmas, has become an event, when really it is to be a way of life. Our first reading on Easter Sunday, the Apostle Paul describes it:

“If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus – Philippians 2:1-5

Over the next four weeks we will be learning more about this way of life in our “Friends in Christ” sermon series. We are obviously doing a pretty good job at this when people attend St. Luke’s, as you will hear this coming Sunday from the dozen new members who are joining. The common theme when asked why they are joining was, “St. Luke’s is just so welcoming.”

Here’s my encouragement, can we be just as good at inviting, which really is all about listening. In the months ahead the Faith Practices and Neighboring Practices team will be offering opportunities for St. Luke’s members to connect with one another and our neighbors.

Between now and then, live the Easter message as the Apostle Paul shared with the Ephesians:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the results of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. – Ephesians 2:8-10
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Christ is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!