April 2016
The Pastor’s Ponderings Pastor David’s cell phone—348-330-4170 and email address—fleeneda@gmail.com
Pr. David preached the following sermon at Zion’s Easter Vigil on March 26th. Can you imagine what that Sabbath was like? How quiet it must have been. How still compared to the previous day. God in Christ lay dead in a tomb. The world continued on, as it had always done, unmindful of the significance of Friday’s events. Of what God had done for it out of love.
first word that sparked creation. God reversed death. Sometimes people will challenge these resurrection accounts on the grounds that we have never seen anything like it ourselves. As far as we know, dead stays dead. We have no reason, from our own experience, to believe that the resurrection happened.
For the first time since the end of creation, God rested on the seventh day.
Still others will spiritualize the resurrection accounts, saying that the disciples may have had some kind of vision of the risen Christ, but that he could not have possibly been risen physically. Again, the resurrection defies reason and logic.
In the darkness of that early Sunday morning, in the total absence of light, God the Father acted. God did something that was impossible, more impossible, perhaps, than the
But a worldwide movement built on the foundation of a mere spiritual experience would be doomed to failure. There were many, many messianic movements
Zion’s 2016 Council Members Elder & President ...................................................................... Jody Stanley Elder & Vice-President ................................................................. Larry Hile Secretary ............................................................................... Barb Hardwick Deacons ................................................................................... Scott Clamme Drew Walker Allen Stallsmith Trustees .................................................................................... Chris Stroble Tom Armstrong Mark Prout Treasurer ................................................................................. Max Langdon Financial Secretaries .................................................................... Tiann Coy Kathy Sharp
in 1st and 2nd century Palestine. Arguably, the most successful was the Bar Kokhba revolt, which, 100 years after Jesus’ ministry, ruled parts of Judea for two years. However, the Romans crushed the movement and Bar Kokhba’s followers scattered.
For the disciples of Jesus to come out publicly, announcing his resurrection in the flesh after people had seen him killed would have been the height of ridiculousness. Such an announcement, had it not been true, would have doomed the remaining followers of Jesus to death and ignominy. But he was raised early that morning in the darkness, and nothing was the same after that. Destruction was turned on itself; out of the ashes of human hatred came God, love incarnate, raised from death. For the first time in human history, people saw that death was not the final answer to life. Mary Magdalene saw him that morning, her and our Lord and God, triumphant over death’s terrible power. Jesus went to hell and back, and dealt death its own mortal wound, for us – for his beloved church. He is risen. And nothing is the same.