Good morning…
One reason I love being deeply connected to a church is the changing seasonal rhythms I am led through each year. At staff meeting this week, one of our Associate Pastors shared his growing desire to consider Easter morning the kick off of the spiritual year for our church family. My Spirit resonated with his comments as I thought, “Yes, Jesus’ death on the cross, his three days in hell’s tomb, and his miraculous resurrection into vibrant, everlasting life is truly the church’s annual “Happy New Year.”
Easter morning is the new-birth day celebration of God’s miraculous power in our ordinary lives, year after year. Like walking down the aisle anxiously single, vowing commitment to God and to a helpmate for life, before walking back up the aisle to begin a new state of oneness. Like being huge and nine months pregnant before birthing into the world a unique child of God who needs our shepherding. Like being with a loved one who takes a final earthly breath before being ushered into the freedom of our fantastic, forever home. Annually, Easter celebrates nailing to death on the cross the greedy grip of our old human nature and the open armed resurrection of God’s Spirit within us.
If Easter is our church family’s annual kick off, we notice the waning of this church year as we head into the Lent next Wednesday, Ash Wednesday. During the eleventh hour season of Lent, we acknowledge the places where we feel anxiously single right now. We notice the painful discomfort of being expanded beyond our imagination by the Spirit of our living God growing in our bellies. We face and we name our self centered, gluttonous parts nearing in us their last earthly breath.
One special, annual event we host through the Women’s Ministry department at Northside Church is our Women’s Lenten Communion Service. One of my absolutely favorite evenings of the year, we gather together in our church chapel, we enjoy sacred, candlelit music, we hear the Spirit’s encouraging voice speaking through a person who is imperfectly human like us, and God empowers me to lead us together through a sacred experience of breaking bread, celebrating Jesus’ enduring gift of intimate communion. This year our speaker, Karen Riddell, is sharing “God’s Invitation into Friendship.” To deepen your experience of this season of Lent, mark your calendar and bring a friend to Northside’s chapel on Tuesday, February 16th from 6:30 to 8:00 pm (Northside United Methodist Church, 2799 Northside Drive, Atlanta, GA 30305).
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again,”
John 3:3 (NIV),
Sue
