Happy Easter!

I am sure that this goes without saying, but there will be no discussion time on Sunday this week. That is because Sunday is the greatest day of the whole year. Sunday is Easter. I pray that for you it is a time of joy and celebration for you. I also pray that it is a time of hope.

One of the things that I love about Easter is that we basically get it to ourselves. It does not receive the same kind of hype that Christmas does and so you don't have that experience where you are sick of it before you even get to it. And yet what it means for us is that our God has defeated the powers of sin and death and the devil forever. This same God loves us and has made us his own through the waters of baptism. He also promises to be with us and will never leave us or abandon us. Therefore, there is nothing that we need to fear. There is nothing that is more powerful than our God. And because he lives, then we too can truly live and experience life. We can experience life as it was meant to be lived, life that is free from fear and bound to nothing other than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The wallpaper on my computer is five symbols. They are symbols that were found on an early Christian tomb. They act like a creed. There is a down arrow, followed by a cross, followed by an empty tomb, followed by an up arrow, and last is another down arrow. Christ came (down arrow). He died (cross). He rose (empty tomb). He ascended (up arrow). He will come back (down arrow). I love this because at the middle of it is the empty tomb. And that is what Easter is all about.

I pray that this Easter would be a joyful and hope filled celebration for you and your family. God's peace and Easter Joy be yours.

Sincerely,
Pastor CJ

Heaven

We will spend the next couple of weeks talking about Heaven in our community time. This is a great topic and one that we should have no problem spending two weeks on. First, let me say that heaven is being in the presence of God. It is something that is better than anything we can imagine. We have ideas and images that are associated with heaven. Some are better than others. But the idea behind all that is to say that heaven is awesome.

The book of Revelation tells us that at the end, after the final judgment, that creation is restored. There is a new heaven and a new earth. That the heavenly Jerusalem comes down out of heaven, and rests on the earth, and God lives with his people in this place.

This is the hope of heaven that we will forever live with our God in our bodies, which will no longer be corrupted by sin, sickness or death, and that we will live on the earth. Most people think of heaven as a spiritual kind of place in the clouds. But that is not the case. At least that is not how the Scriptures speak of this. The Christian hope is not that we are with Jesus when we die, although that is nice. The Christian hope is resurrection and living in creation the way that it was intended to be. That is our hope.

This means that we don't have to just focus on death, but we can focus on life, because that is what the resurrection is ultimately about, life. And, in the church we get to experience a foretaste of the feast to come. Not year and years down the road, but right now. This is one of those things that seems kind of simple on the surface, but the more you think about it and unpack it, the more you realize how deep this all is.

We as the church get to live in the reality of heaven. Which is a really awesome blessing. And when we live in this reality it changes our perspective on everything. It is really very cool and I am looking forward to talking more about this with you.

As always, feel free to post questions and responses here. Next Monday I will be on spring break, so there will be no post. But that does not mean that the conversation can't continue, so please feel free to make use of it. Blessings and God's peace. I will see you back here in two weeks.

 

Sincerely,

Pastor CJ Ransdell

Why do I need to Go to Church?

I live a sincere life and do good deeds, why do I need to go to church? This is the question for the week and the topic of our discussion on Sunday. I see in this question a few different topics. If this is a question about salvation, in other words, why do I have to go to church if I want to be saved? Then the answer is that salvation is not obtained from church attendance. However, salvation is also not obtained through a sincere life and good deeds. If that were the case then Jesus would not have needed to give up his life for us on the cross. No, we are sinners incapable of doing any good deeds on our own.

Now, if the question is why do I need to go to church, which is how I tend to take it, then the answer is one of those that is simple and yet profound. We need to go to church because we need it. The church is the body of Christ. It is in the church that the Holy Spirit daily and richly forgives all of my sins and the sins of all believers. It is in the church where God's people work and live together to support and encourage one another in their lives and discipleship and to be about the work that God has given them to do in making known the love, grace, mercy and forgiveness of God in Jesus.

Now this type of question usually comes up, because the people who make up the church are sinners and they can mess up and give bad impressions. When this happens we tend to focus on the church as an institution and see it in terms of power and organization and all that kind of stuff. But the church is really a community of grace that lives today in God's future reality of tomorrow. They live in the kingdom of God. They experience a foretaste of the feast that is to come.

This is the kind of community that the world needs. Not because they are misbehaving, but because they need the love and forgiveness and mercy that God pours out into the lives of his people, so that they can then have those things mark their lives also. The church does not exist for the sake of the church, but rather for the sake of the world who does not know God.

Our God is about the work of reconciling creation back to himself. He blesses us with the privilege of being ministers of reconciliation too. I think everyone desires to live lives in connection with people. We want to be loved and to love. That is something that the church has to offer. That is why we need to go to church.

God's blessings and peace in Jesus be yours this week and always.

 

Sincerely,

Pastor CJ

 

P.S. This is the last topic I have on the list, so if you have anything you would like to ask or talk about, now is the time to ask. If you don't want to leave a post here, you can e-mail your questions to me at cjransdell@oflc.net

HELL!

The topic for this week's blog is one that I almost skipped over. But as I was doing more research and reading, found that it would be a good discussion. What do we do with/about hell? How does this fit into the picture? In other words if we believe that God is a loving God how can we accept the idea that sending people to hell is something that a loving God can do?

I will not attempt to answer those questions here, but will set the stage of the discussion on Sunday. If you are unable to be a part of things on Sunday, then post a response and we will go from there, but this post is being written with the intent of having a live face to face discussion on Sunday.

First of where we stand on the teaching of hell is not based on our feelings about the topic. We can believe what we believe about it, but that does not mean that we have to like it, or feel good about it. It does not have to be something that leaves us with warm fuzzies, and if it does, we should probably talk. But not liking it is not a reason to throw it out either.

We believe and teach what we do about hell because that is what the scriptures teach. But it is also important for us to take some time and see how much of what we believe about hell is based on what is written in scripture and what we have picked up from movies, tv, literature and Far Side comics (which are pretty funny). In other words as we sort through our feelings and have this discussion, we want to make sure that we have the right understanding of the topic and are not simply reacting to something that may actually be false.

On Sunday we will talk about what Hell is, but this is not the same thing as determining who is going to end up there. That decision is reserved for one alone. And he is worthy and capable of making such decisions. And let's not forget the fact that the one making these decisions loves people so much that he gave his own on a cross so that their sins would be forgiven and so that they would not have to be separated from God for all eternity. The one making these decisions is the one who always makes the right decision in every circumstance, and so we can hang our hats on that.

Of course leaving the judgment to Jesus does not mean that we just ignore this topic either. I think that as we talk about this we will find that it should provide us with a couple of things. First, it should give us a deep sense of humility and respect. Humility because we know and understand that what we are talking about is what our sins deserve. Though we need not fear because of God's grace in Jesus, we should not talk about such things arrogantly and boastfully. Second, it should provide for us motivation in how we live our lives as individuals and as members of a community of faith. And I do not mean to imply that we live lives motivated by fear, because that is no way to live. But if this is what we believe, we should do everything we can to show, proclaim and make known the love and grace and mercy and forgiveness of God in Jesus.

And we want to do this in a way that honors and respects people. We do not want to dehumanize them or ignore their feelings and wishes, and so with all things there is balance that is needed.

So there you have it. The stage is set. Come on Sunday with questions and ready for discussion. If you are unable to come on Sunday, feel free to leave your comments and we will begin the discussion on this blog.

God's richest blessings and peace in Jesus be yours.

 

Sincerely,

Pastor CJ