Reflection

What a rich weekend we shared at Bethel from Thursday to Sunday. The movement of Holy Week is such a dramatic experience of highs and lows - following Jesus through Jerusalem towards his death, standing in grief and wonder at the foot of the cross, and then sharing in the celebration of resurrection life on Easter Sunday. It is a beautiful, but perhaps also an exhausting, journey to take. As we enter into the experience, much in our own lives is opened and revealed. And we might feel ready to pack it all up now and get back to some “ordinary” time.

But we do continue now into an Easter season, both in the church calendar and in our experience as followers of Jesus. You’ll notice that the cross remains up in our sanctuary over the next number of weeks, draped in white fabric that reminds us of both the death and the life that shape our story of faith. What does it mean to be an Easter people? A resurrection people? What difference does this good news make in the lives we return to and in the oh-so-complicated world in which we live? How is God continuing this work of restoration that has been so beautifully revealed in Jesus – both dying and living anew within God’s beloved creation?

- Pastor Kevin Derksen