REPENTANCE AND FORGIVENESS

Dear Friends in Christ:

In our Confirmation Class of 7th & 8th grade youth on Sunday afternoon, I asked the question: “What is repentance?”

One of the youth quickly answered: “It’s turning away from our sin.”

I then asked her: “If we turn away from sin, what do we turn to?”

She thought for awhile and answered: “We turn to God for forgiveness!”

Paul said it so well: “While we were still in our sins, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) You need only repent, turn away from yourself and your ways, and believe that Jesus Christ died for you, for your sin, for your guilt.

This we can be sure of: when we do in fact turn away from our sins in repentance, there is something to turn to. God welcomes us and God will not turn us down.

Here’s a wonderful story I read this week:
A small boy had been naughty, and his mother punished him and put him to bed. In bed he said, “Now you go away Mommy, I want to talk to God.” She asked, “Is there something you want to say to God that you don’t want me to hear? ”He said, “No, Mommy, it isn’t that exactly; it’s just that if I pray to God and ask his forgiveness, he will forgive me and forget it. But if you stay and listen, you will keep remembering and reminding me of it.”

God is even better than a Mommy on this score. God is so marvelous and great. We don’t deserve it, and God knows it, but God will give us forgiveness anyway. There is a beautiful new life waiting for you just around the corner of repentance, and you are invited to turn that corner.

God says: “You want it? You’ve got it! You’re forgiven!”

Thanks be to God!

—Pastor David Fetter

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“Easter Hope is Real for You and for Me!”

Dear Friends in Christ:

Yesterday was Easter Sunday. It was a wonderful day of celebration for our Congregation! “Christ is Risen. He is Risen, indeed! Alleluia!”

Today is Monday and the joy, hope, and peace of Easter is still very real for me as I write this article. It is my prayer that this is true for each one of you.

On the church-year calendar, the Easter Season is 50 days of rejoicing. And, all year long every Sunday is “a little Easter”, as Martin Luther once said. As God’s people who are baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our lifetime is sustained by the daily Good News of those first witnesses of the Resurrection:

“They put Jesus to death by hanging him on a cross; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear.” (Acts 10:39-40)

“Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures… was buried… and was raised on the third day…” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)

“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.’” (Luke 24:1-5)

How is this message real for our daily lives? Three stories I read in my meditations today spoke to my heart and mind. I hope they will give you the VERY REAL HOPE of EASTER:

Clarence Jordan wrote The Cotton Patch Gospel, a version of the New Testament in the dialect of the rural South. He may be best known for that scripture paraphrase, but in the 1960s Jordan, a white pastor, founded an interracial community in Georgia called Koinonia Farms. The bigoted culture all around him shunned Jordan. Threats were made to his life, but he persevered.

In 1969, Clarence Jordan died of a heart attack. None of the local funeral directors was willing to help with his funeral — out of either prejudice or fear of violence — so he ended up being buried in a plain cedar box on a hillside near his farm.

Jordan’s friend, Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity, officiated at the funeral. When the serivce was ended, it was time to lower to casket into the ground. Just as this was happening, Fuller’s two-year-old daughter stepped up to the grave and began to sing the only song she knew: “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Clarence, happy birthday to you.”

As Fuller later told the tale, it seemed to all who were present that the Lord was somehow behind that innocent, childlike song. For what they had all been celebrating that day, on a Georgia hillside, was not a death after all: but a wonderful, glorious rebirth.

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Brad was still pouting and crying in his beer at the local bar one year later, after he lost his job at the factory. His job went overseas and Brad blamed the US president, NAFTA, the congress, and everybody who ran the country. One day, a former shop worker, who also lost his factory job, came into the bar for a burger and a drink. He told Brad that there are plenty of jobs selling insurance. The company would train him. But Brad would have to believe that there is new life after the factory. Could this factory worker adapt to a white-collar sales job?

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For 2,000 years there have been inquiries concerning proof of the resurrection, and questions are still being asked today. In this post-modern era we want empirical proof. To the question posed we hear over and over, “I know what I know.” That answer does not provide what people are looking for. Like “looking for love in all the wrong places”, they may be looking for Christ in all the wrong ways. The greatest testimony to a risen and living Christ is the lives that he has transformed. Look around you and observe the witness of those you know who have experienced the risen, living Christ. Their lives have been transformed by a Christ encounter, and there is no other explanation for the changes in their lifestyles and their passion to spread the good news.

When the living Christ touches your life, you know it, and you know that you are now a different person. Your joy and that peace that surpasses all understanding are the hallmarks of a new life in Christ. They are your gift by the grace of God.

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—Pastor David Fetter

A Holy Week of Prayer

Dear Friends in Christ:

For the Christian Church, there is no more holy week in our church year calendar than the eight days from Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion to Easter.

For each one of us who are called “Christians”, this week is the reason for our faith. So, I am inviting you to join me in a daily discipline of praying beginning this Sunday, April 5th through Easter Day, April 12th. Let us pray that we might focus on Jesus as “the pioneer and perfector of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)

† Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion—April 5th
Prayer of the Day:
“Everlasting God, in your endless love for the human race you sent our Lord Jesus Christ to take on our nature and to suffer death on the cross. In your mercy enable us to share in his obedience to your will and in the glorious victory of his resurrection.”

† Monday in Holy Week—April 6th:
Prayer of the Day:
“O God, your Son chose the path that led to pain before joy and to the cross before glory. Plant his cross in our hearts, so that in its power and love we may come at last to joy and glory.”

† Tuesday in Holy Week—April 7th:
Prayer of the Day:
“Lord Jesus, you have called us to follow you. Grant that our love may not grow cold in your service, and that we may not fail or deny you in the time of trial.”

† Wednesday in Holy Week—April 8th
Prayer of the Day:
“Almighty God, your Son our Savior suffered at human hands and endured the shame of the cross. Grant that we may walk in the way of his cross and find it the way of life and peace.”

† Maundy Thursday—April 9th
Prayers of the Day:
“Holy God, source of all love, on the night of his betrayal, Jesus gave us a new commandment, to love one another as he loves us. Write this commandment in our hearts, and give us the will to serve others as he was the servant of all.”
“Eternal God, in the sharing of a meal your Son established a new covenant for all people, and in the washing of feet he showed us the dignity of service. Grant that by the power of your Holy Spirit these signs of our life in faith may speak again to our hearts, feed our spirits, and refresh our bodies.”

† Good Friday—April 10th
Prayer of the Day:
“Almighty God, look with loving mercy on your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, to be given over to the hands of sinners, and to suffer death on the cross.”

† Saturday Vigil of Easter—April 11th
Prayer of the Day:
“O God, you are the creator of the world, the liberator of your people, and the wisdom of the earth. By the resurrection of your Son free us from our fears, restore us in your image, and ignite us with your light, throught Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.”

† Resurrection of Our Lord/Easter Day—April 12th
Prayers of the Day:
“O God, you gave your only Son to suffer death on the cross for our redemption, and by his glorious resurrection you delivered us from the power of death. Make us die every day to sin, that we may live with him forever in the joy of the resurrection.”
“God of mercy, we no longer look for Jesus among the dead, for he is alive and has become the Lord of life. Increase in our minds and hearts the risen life we share with Christ, and help us to grow as your people toward the fullness of eternal life with you, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.”

Christ Is Risen! He Is Risen, Indeed!

—Pastor David Fetter