04-08 Spirit-Filled & Spirit-Led
Happy Easter! Sometimes we forget that Easter itself is a period of time rather than one day. It is actually a seven-week season of the church year called Eastertide—the Great Fifty Days that begins at sundown the evening before Easter Sunday and lasts for six more Sundays until Pentecost Sunday when we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church.
Sheri Edwards Dalton | Co-Senior Pastor
Happy Easter! Sometimes we forget that Easter itself is a period of time rather than one day. It is actually a seven-week season of the church year called Eastertide—the Great Fifty Days that begins at sundown the evening before Easter Sunday and lasts for six more Sundays until Pentecost Sunday when we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church.
These special days and seasons are a means to shape sacred time, a structure to struggle, as the first disciples did, with what it means to be a follower of Christ.
We know that the key to understanding how we are empowered, through Christ, to live as his followers in today’s world, is to understand the person of the Trinity we call Holy Spirit.
Beginning the Sunday after Easter we will preach a series of sermons that focus on the Holy Spirit. Who is this Spirit Jesus “breathed on his disciples” in that room where they hid behind locked doors after his death? (John 20:19-23) Is the Spirit mentioned in Genesis who was “moving over the water” when the world was created, the same Spirit we were given at Pentecost? Many people consider themselves to be “spiritual” people—what difference does it make to be a Christian, and be filled with the Spirit of Christ? Come and join us as we learn more about what it means to be Spirit-filled and Spirit-led as followers of our Risen Lord.
On another subject, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped to make our Lenten Season and Holy week and Easter such an amazing experience. I feel so blessed to work with such a gifted and gracious staff, and with incredibly faithful, gifted volunteers who have a passion for making our worship experience be meaningful and memorable
Finally, in this season of Eastertide, I wanted to leave you with the words of the prayer many of us prayed in small groups around tables in the Sanctuary, after we shared the Lord’s Supper together at the Maundy Thursday Service:
Dear, Lord Jesus, what shall I say to you? Your love is too wonderful for me; it is perfect; I can’t understand it. But this I do: I dwell within it, silently, gratefully, faithfully, believing in it after all. Amen.
May you be touched by the reality of Christ’s love in this Eastertide.