A Word to Easter

“The church is emerging as a community wherein lives are connecting with and being transformed by a boundless God who was incarnate in Jesus and in the witness of those who welcomed the Spirit.” When I first read these words from United Methodist Pastor Timothy Hare, I was struck by what an appropriate description Hare gives of our 21st-century Christian church — a church that is “emerging,” a church that is “connecting with and being transformed,” a church rooted in “a boundless God who was incarnate in Jesus and in the witness of those who welcomed the Spirit.” Sound familiar?

And yet, even more striking to me is that with these words Pastor Hare is not seeking to describe the church of today. Instead, Pastor Hare writes these words as a description of the church that came into being on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, just fifty days after Jesus’ rising from the grave on Easter Sunday. Remarkable, isn’t it? Two thousand years later and the Christian church is still exactly what the Spirit at Pentecost created us to be — a church that is emerging!

Surely the Christian community that was emerging just weeks after Jesus’ death and resurrection must have felt like their existence was fragile and precarious. After all, Jesus, the one who had been the center of their community, was no longer physically with them the way he once had been. Their numbers were small. They had very few resources, having left everything to follow Jesus. They were living under the control of the oppressive Roman empire. How long would it be before their small community disappeared altogether? Surely, their days were numbered.

But then … something happens! God intervenes! Having received the promised Holy Spirit, Peter begins to preach the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Moved by the Spirit, the crowd asks, “What should we do?,” to which Peter responds, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:37-38). And that day three thousand persons were baptized and added to the community! What happens that day in the early church is not the result of Peter or of the crowd or of those who were baptized. What happens is solely the work of the Holy Spirit through the proclamation of the gospel!

Yes, we are an Easter church! However, we are also a Pentecost church! The Spirit is just as active and alive in the church today as it was on that first Pentecost. As I travel around our synod week after week, I see it. I see new Christians being baptized, both infants and adults. I see communities of disciples feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, clothing families in need. I see relationships being formed and leaders being called into ministry. And I hear stories — stories of lives being transformed, stories of students on our college campuses being welcomed into church for the very first time, stories of churches building tee ball fields on their church lawns and installing basketball hoops in their parking lots, stories of disciples publicly living out their faith in increasingly bold and courageous ways.

As we continue to bask in the joy of Easter, what might the Spirit be bringing to new life in the midst of our seemingly fragile, precarious, struggling communities of disciples? What transformation might the Spirit be working in peoples’ lives as the gospel is preached and the sacraments are shared? By the power of the Spirit, how is the church of today “emerging as a community wherein lives are connecting with and being transformed by a boundless God who was incarnate in Jesus and in the witness of those who welcomed the Spirit?”

I am convinced more than ever that the Christian church is not dying. The church is emerging, just as it always has and just as it always will, by the power of the Spirit!

O Spirit of the Lord, prepare
A sinful world its God to meet;
And breathe abroad like morning air;
Till hearts of stone begin to beat. (LBW #388)

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Bishop Greg