Life Lessons of Spring

I must confess that I am hungry for Spring. We have had SO much rain and with more on the way this week, I find myself feeling frustrated. But Spring IS here. The forsythia in my yard has bloomed, as have the daffodils. On my way home from Church this morning, I drove my favorite Spring time route – and the lilacs, my FAVORITE part of Spring – which grow along this road in great profusion are just about to grace us with their beautiful blooms and scent. As the earth bursts into new life, I find myself humming over and over the third verse of one of my favorite hymns, Immortal Invisible (UMH #l03):

To all life thou givest, to both great and small.
In all life thou livest, the true life of all.
We blossom and flourish like leaves on the tree,
and wither and perish, but nought changeth thee.

The Easter season we continue to celebrate reminds us that the cycle of birth, death and resurrection is one that is ordained by God, the Creator. We live that story in the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus during the "Great Fifty Days of Easter" (did you know Easter last for 50 days?). In this hemisphere, we are blessed that Easter always falls in the Spring and we can see the visible signs of new life coming forth from what looks like death all around us.

As Pastor John reminded us in his sermon this morning, spending time in God’s creation “restores our souls” (Psalm 23). As God’s creatures, we have a place in the created world – a place not only of stewardship, but of enjoyment. We need to be IN God’s creation – to celebrate its seasons, to learn its wisdom, to rejoice in God’s goodness in creating it. This year, I found a flock of wild turkeys not far from my house. During the school vacation last week, I took my almost- eleven- year -old son out just before daybreak to watch the turkeys fly down from their roosts. For an hour and forty minutes, we sat silently (this is my son who can’t sit still and doesn’t like being outside) and listened to the different calls the turkeys made to each other. At breakfast afterward, he said to me,“Mama, my favorite part was how golden the sun looked on the field as it came up. It made me peaceful.” It was only an hour and forty minutes, but in that time, we were part of the creation, not separate from it. And it seems to me that this is what God intended when God created “the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1: 1) and human kind within it. We took an hour and forty minutes to be “amazed” as Pastor John asked us to in this morning’s message – and we, too, saw that “it was good” (Genesis 1:31)

I hope you and your family find some time together to dig in the dirt, to watch the buds on the tree branches bloom, to keep track of the pregnant cows and ewes, waiting for calves and lambs to be born, and to celebrate the miracle that is resurrection in the creation this spring. This is a wonderful way to not only celebrate God's goodness, but to help children understand that all created life is born, flourishes, lies dormant and is then resurrected in God's time. As we tune our spirits into the divine rhythms in the creation, we are again reminded that death holds no fear for us because we know that God through Jesus is at work in it and we, too, share in the new life blossoming all around us.


Faithfully,

Elizabeth

"Easter Triumph, Easter Joy"

Alleluia!!! Christ is Risen!!!!

These are the most joyful words in the Christian vocabulary - they are the Truth that defines us and the mystery that every other event in the Christian liturgical year points to. Because Christ has risen from the dead, we need fear nothing. In the resurrection of our Lord, God proves once and for all that NOTHING can destroy love. It is a huge gift and a mystery that takes our entire lives to live into.

Because Easter is such a complex mystery, the Church takes the fifty days between Easter and the Day of Pentecost to ponder together what Christ's rising from the dead means for us. We hear accounts of the resurrection appearances to the disciples and we think about the sacraments so that we can discover how we are to live our lives as members of Christ's risen body. The Sundays between Easter and Pentecost tell a story and we invite you to bring your children to Church and Church School these next several Sundays to join us in the wondering and celebration.

Here are some thoughts from Joe Russell's The New Prayerbook Guide to Christian Education that will help you share the themes of Easter with your children at home:

- Jesus has risen from the dead. We have everlasting life because of Jesus' resurrection!

- God's love is stronger than death. Because of God's love, we do not have to be afraid to
die.

- Easter is about new life coming from what appears to be death and that new life is full of surprises and new possibilities.

- We receive Jesus' new life at our baptisms, and during the Easter season, we think about
what our baptisms mean in our lives.

I hope these themes help you talk easily with your children about what Easter means. Many families have Easter traditions that help make visible to their children the importance of the Easter message. I would love to hear how your family shares in the Good News of Easter. Please leave a comment and we can share how we tell the story of the Easter Triumph as families at Sudbury United Methodist Church!

Easter Blessings,

Elizabeth