Dear Salem FCC Friends in Christ, 

Holy Week and Easter are behind us!  Does this mean these days and what they represent are behind us, too?  No!

Holy Week began with our remembering and celebrating first century Jews who dared to harbor the highest of human hopes: the arrival of a Godly human who would lead people into an age of shalom or the well-being of all God’s people on earth.  It ended with their dreams being shattered on a torturous instrument of Roman execution, the cross.  

Evil, seemed to have triumphed.   But, no!  

In the experience of a few, and in the belief of some others, a God of amazing love had the last word in the resurrection of Christ Jesus from the grave.  Their story is wondrous, but hard to embrace.  Not only because of Jesus’ resurrection, but also because evil and death remain rampant in our lives and world.  

So, yes the days of Holy Week and Easter are behind us in a secular, literal sense, but the times they represent are still ahead of us in a spiritual sense.  It’s all quite a paradox and conundrum that requires time – maybe even a lifetime – to integrate into our lives.

Fortunately, for us, this is exactly what the church has given us.  For the church has not given us only an annual day, but an annual season in which to reflect upon Easter’s meaning and integrate its perspective into our lives.  It’s called Eastertide, and it lasts seven weeks! 

As the continuing drama of life – with all its human hopes and tragic sorrows continues, we shall be faithful to Easter’s call that we reflect  it unto transformation.   And, in the end, we shall not leave Easter’s life  in the ash heap of human history, but shall make it vitally real. 

This is my hope for us as those who comprise Christ’s church.  What’s yours – after Easter? 

Blessings of Eastertide, 

Ed Koonz