Easter is more than a day! The Easter Season begins on Easter Sunday and continues for 50 days until the day of Pentecost, the day the Holy Spirit breathed on the first disciples and gave birth to the Church.

The season of Easter is one of great joy! St. Augustine wrote, “A Christian should be an Alleluia from head to foot!”

Joseph Bayly, in Psalms of My Life, wrote this wonderful Psalm of Easter (adapted as shown):

“Let's celebrate Easter with the rite of laughter.
Christ died and rose and lives.
Laugh like a woman who holds her first baby.
Our enemy death is (will soon be) destroyed.
Laugh like a man who finds he doesn't have cancer, or he does,
but now there's a cure.

Christ opened wide the door of heaven.

Laugh like children at Disneyland's gates.

This world is owned by God, and he'll return to rule.

Laugh like a man who walks away uninjured from a wreck in which his car was totaled.

Laugh as if all the people in the whole world were invited to a picnic
and then invite them.”

This Sunday we begin a new sermon series Signs of the Kingdom. Jesus told parables, stories with a hidden meaning, to help people unwrap a deeper truth and get a fresh glimpse of the kingdom of God. The first sermon, The Rich Man and Lazarus, based on Luke 16:19-31, will take a fresh look at a parable that many have misinterpreted.

I look forward to seeing you this Sunday in church! May your Easter season be filled with deep, abiding joy and an abundance of hearty laughter! Christ is Risen! He is Risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Joy in our Risen Lord,

Pastor Cathy