"Easter Invitations"

Dear WRC,

As we prepare to celebrate another Easter together (our 14th!), will you consider two invitations?

Invitation #1 – Will you join us for worship? The details for our various services are in this Bellringer somewhere, and the fact that you’re reading this letter means that you’re probably already pretty connected to the congregation, but I want to make sure you hear the invitation to come and worship with us. The events we remember every Holy Week are remarkable. No matter how much we plumb their depths, we will never get to the bottom of them. Yet every year we gather, try to wrap our heads around what happened, consider what it means for us, and leave in awe. I hope you’ll join us as we gather to stand before these mysteries.

Invitation #2 – As we gather, will you take some time to consider that all this really happened? Maybe it’s just me, but it’s easy to go through the motions or to hear the story and leave it off as an idea far away from me and my life and reality. But sometimes something breaks through my awareness and somewhere in the middle of one of these services—Good Friday or Easter morning—the lightning bolt of realization strikes: there was a human being named Jesus who lived and ate and drank and talked and slept for 33 years and then got crucified, and after that brutal, torturous death ROSE FROM THE DEAD. It’s not just an idea. It’s not just a story. Christians believe—and have some compelling evidence—this actually happened.

I don’t want this second invitation to be a way to step into the debate of the historicity of the resurrection. I mean it as an invitation to take an idea you believe down off the shelf of your mind, stare it straight in the face, and see what happens. Then come and join us to worship the Lamb who stands as though slaughtered beside the throne of heaven. See if the sunrise and the hymns and the lilies and flowering that cross don’t hit a little different. See if something doesn’t unlock and open in your heart. I have a hunch that if we do this, we might taste and see a little more of that life John says comes through believing in Jesus.

In Christ,
Pastor Andy