Wednesday, April 1, 2009

EASTER STORY






What is the real reason we celebrate Easter?  Is it the arrival of spring?  Spring is wonderful and in a year such as this, when it snows on April 1st (no joke) and the Red River is flooding the entire northeast corner of Minnesota, we certainly want to celebrate Spring!  But Jesus is the  reason we celebrate Easter!  God loves all of us so much that he was willing to sacrifice his son, Jesus, for our sins.  But that is not the end of the story.  On Easter Sunday God raised Jesus from the dead.  He conquered death.  Jesus' friends were so excited to see him as he walked among them for a short time.  Then God took Jesus to live with him in heaven where he is preparing a place for us  when we are done living our lives here on earth.   
What a wonderful story this is!  It is so full of hope for all of us.  To tell this  important  story we invited Salem's senior pastor, Rev. Mark Patti, to join us.  Pastor Mark is an extraordinary story teller who was able to tell the Easter Story to the children in a way that they could understand and in a style that kept them interested .   As the children met the participants in the story they heard about how angry some of the people in the crowd were, how scared some of the disciples were and how sad Mary  was.  Then Pastor Mark reminded us that the Easter Story shows us that God is more powerful then anything.  Whenever we are afraid or sad we can remember that God is able to help us because he is the most powerful!
Alleluia!  Have a blessed Easter!