If Easter Be Not True Henry H. Barstow

Transcription

1 If Easter Be Not True Henry H. Barstow If Easter be not true, Then all the lilies low must lie; The field of poppies fade and die; The spring must lose her fairest bloom, For Christ were still within the tomb If Easter be not true. If Easter be not true, Then faith must mount on broken wing; Then come no more immortal spring; Then hope must lose her mighty urge; Life prove a phantom, death a dirge If Easter be not true. If Easter be not true, Twere foolishness the cross to bear; He died in vain who suffered there; What matter though we laugh or cry, Be good or evil, live or die, If Easter be not true? If Easter be not true But it is true, and Christ is risen! And mortal spirit from its prison Of sin and death with him may rise! Worthwhile the struggle, sure the prize, Since Easter, yes! is true! 1

2 Easter again and forever! Easter! Wow! Hallelujah! Really, Easter is the greatest of Christian holy days even more so than Christmas. Though we love Christmas, much of our Christmas celebration entails activities that have no obvious spiritual meaning. At Easter it s a bit different. Though we do indulge our kids with candy and stories about the Easter Bunny, Easter still focuses on the Resurrection of Christ. This article may be my last chance to write about Easter in The Mouse. So, Id like to say something personal something about my own outlook on Easter and why I believe Easter is so important. At Easter we celebrate the restoration of life. Paul writes that Resurrection pertains to all of us: For as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:22). These are very comforting words. But it is hard to hear them without wondering what life-after-death or heaven will be like. After 40 years of ministry, I am still not sure how to answer this question! Life in heaven is commonly thought to be a lot like our life on earth, except that (1) frustration, pain, and failure are not allowed, and (2) heavenly life just goes on forever, without end. Would that really be what we need? Someone gave me a book that says, if you like golf, in heaven your golf score will improve every day! How could that work? Harvey Potthoff used to say, Some people who yearn for endless life don t know what to do with a rainy afternoon. Maybe it truly is possible to have too much of a good thing! So, I m taking a wait-and-see approach to life-after-death. In 2 Corinthians 2:9, Paul quotes a saying: What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him. I do have faith that whatever is best for us will be what God provides. Christians believe that Resurrection pertains not only to certain individuals but to the whole creation (Romans 8:22). Some of you know that entropy is a rule in chemistry and physics. Entropy signifies that things naturally tend to become more disordered. My desktop has been cited as a conspicuous example of this. Some people think that the whole universe will eventually run down because all matter and energy will eventually be randomly disordered throughout space. Personally, I don t believe that. Despite entropy, mind and spirit have also appeared and flourished in nature! Will the universe ever run down? I don t know. But I do believe that if life and spirit happened once, they will keep happening again. What s that got to do with Resurrection? Everything! As the poem on page 1 says, the coming of spring reminds us that it is the nature of life to reappear, to renew itself. Life originally came forth after a primordial soup of incandescent particles cooled down to the right temperature. Life emerges where the physical and the spiritual interact. That, I believe, is what God s Creation is all about! I don t know what happened on that first day of the week, that Sunday, after Jesus was crucified. But something did happen. In some way, what applies to Jesus applies to our lives, too. Looking at it that way, what could be more important than Easter? David Conner 2

3 Calendar April 2: Maundy Thursday Stew & Communion, 6:30, Fellowship Hall April 3: Good Friday. Sanctuary will be open for meditation from noon until 3:00 p.m. April 5: Easter Sunday! Christ is Risen! April 12: Holy Communion Friday, April 17: All-church Talent Show, 6:30 p.m. Includes dinner. Saturday, April 18: Sue Artt, our acting Conference Minister, will speak for Faith Fellowship. May 3: Christian Education Committee meets after worship service. May 17: Pot-luck lunch; Special presentation on Identity Theft. See Cynthia for details. May 17: Final Day of Choir. April Birthdays & Anniversaries Zadie Nachtweih 3 April Nancy Lawrence 4 April Maylea Williams 6 April Becky Anderson 7 April Tyce Brozovich 7 April Zoe Brozovich 7 April Mark Anderson 8 April Bob Sherry 9 April Lane and Sarah Stocking 9 April Dan Williams 10 April Jim Thomson 10 April Mary Correll 13 April Melodie Myhre 14 April Rosanna Rains 15 April Joyce Jerman 23 April Tom and Erika Kenney 25 April Deb Packard 26 April Karen and Bob Ugolini 28 April Donilyn Thomson 30 April Kendall Johnson 30 April March Offerings and Attendance March 1: $ 7, March 8: $ 2, March 15: $ 4, March 22: $ 1, March 29: $ 1, $17, We need approximately $9,600 per month to pay operating expenses. March was an OUTSTANDING MONTH financially! The average attendance for March was 56. 3

4 Greetings to all! We mice are enjoying this mild spring weather, and we hope you are, too though with spring comes pollen, and a few of us do suffer from allergies. Oh, well, c est la vie! Marie Booth fell during the night on March 22 and was admitted to St. Anthony s hospital. After a frightening bout with pneumonia, treatments were successful, and Marie is now at Cambridge Care for rehab. Marie would be happy to receive cards. Please mail them to 1040 Dudley, Lakewood, David Whitehead has a new job at the Home Depot at Colfax and Teller in Lakewood. He is hoping to get an even better job at the Colo. School of Mines but hasn t heard yet. Good luck, Dave! Nancy Conner is signing a fourteen-month contract to serve as our organist. Thank you, Nancy! We appreciate your music! Zoe Brozovich has had a tummy ailment. We hope she recovers quickly. Ro Rains and several others in our congregation have had annoying colds. We hope that the cold season, which seems to come and go whenever it wants to, will soon choose to go! A group of over a dozen from our church went to hear Bonnie and Curt Daly sing in the Colorado Repertory Singers' production of Carmina Burana by Carl Orff on March 20. It was an excellent performance, and Curt got a tuxedo out of the deal! Congrats to Curt and Bonnie! It was fun to see Fred Rollenhagen s dad, Harlan Rollenhagen, and Harlan s partner Billy Ballentine in church a few weeks ago. Harlan and Billy live in Monte Vista. Rachel Joha and McKenna Sherry were both home from college for spring break. It was great to see you both! Shea Kluender and Dave Nachtweih are throwing a big party for little Zadie on April 4. That s amazing and wonderful! Happy first birthday, Zadie! Warm congratulations to Clair and Grant Kenney, who are being baptized in our church on Easter Sunday! We mice have talked with Grant and Clair, and they understand that baptism is a once-in-a-lifetime event. This is super cool! We continue to think of Chuck Parson, whose parents are in hospice in Florida; and of Krista Williams and her parents. Krista s dad is in Hospice in Arizona. Lane and Sarah Stocking will be attending the Little Hearts Luncheon sponsored every spring by Children s Hospital. Doctors at Children s saved the life of their little son, Owen! Others at the luncheon will be grandparents Glen and Marsha Stocking, and Claudia Schmitt and David Conner. Cathy Conner got to travel with her grandparents, aunt, and uncle to see her brother James and his family, Hae Min and Olivia, in Washington, DC, just before they left for Austria. James and family will be living in Vienna for 2 or 3 years. Cathy says it was a wonderful visit. Please let us know if you have news, prayer requests, or other personal items that might be included in the Mouse. Love to all, the Church Mice 4

5 Announcements Easter Flowers. Again this year members of our church family have helped to pay for flowers for the sanctuary on Easter. The potted flowers that you buy last for a long time. Please remember to take home the ones that you donated! Huge thanks to members of our Christian Education Committee who gave time and resources to supply Easter baskets to moms and children at Hope House, a home for teen mothers in Arvada. Thirty baskets were donated! Maundy Thursday. On the Thursday before Easter our congregation holds a common meal of beef stew followed by musical selections, a special reading, and the Sacrament of the Lord s Supper. People are asked to bring stew ingredients to the church by 10:00 a.m. on April 2. Everything is cooked in a common pot. Vegetarian stew is also prepared. This is a meaningful time as we recall the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples. Good Friday. The sanctuary will be open for prayer and meditation on Good Friday, April 3, from noon until 3:00 p.m. These are the traditional hours of darkness while Christ was on the cross. See Matthew 27:45. Easter Sunday. Our Easter celebration is always exuberant! This year our choir will sing the wonderful anthem, Alleluia, by Randall Thompson and, as a special joy, two of our youth plan to be baptized! Hallelujah! Because Easter occurs this year on the first Sunday in April, because we already have several special activities scheduled for that Sunday, and because we will already have celebrated Communion three days before Easter on Maundy Thursday ( April 2), we will postpone our regular April service of Communion until the Sunday after Easter. Talent Show. Our spring Talent Show will be held on Friday, April 17, beginning with dinner at 6:30 p.m. This is a popular event as members of our congregation share talents including singing, dancing, painting, poetry, and instrumental performance. There will be a nominal charge for the meal. Gabrielle Sherry is our chief cook for the spaghetti dinner. Put this on your calendar! Faith Fellowship will enjoy their spring luncheon on Saturday, April 18. All are invited; please bring a salad to share. The speaker is our fellow church member and acting Conference Minister, Sue Artt. This is something to look forward to! Faith Fellowship is our congregation s women s organization. The Christian Education Committee will meet after worship on May 1. A special program about identity theft will be held after worship on May 17. Unfortunately this is a problem that is probably destined to affect more and more of us. A well-known authority, John Chapman, will be speaking. The event will include a pot-luck lunch. 5

6 Rocky Mountain Conference UCC 41 st Annual Meeting When: June 11-14, 2015 (Thursday evening Sunday morning) Where: La Foret Camp 6145 Shoup Road Colorado Springs, CO Can you attend our Conference s annual meeting in June? Our WRCC UCC is entitled to 3 lay delegates, one lay person to balance each of our 3 clergy members Claudia Schmitt, Sue Artt, and David Conner. (Unfortunately Claudia and David cannot attend because of conflicting out-of-town meetings and a trip they are taking.) The meeting will be held at our beautiful La Foret Camp south of Castle Rock. The church pays your registration fee. If you can go, please speak with David Conner and/or Cynthia Parkinson. The meetings are always informative and positive in spirit, especially now that Sue Artt is our new Acting Conference Minister. Click on the link below for more information. The Church Mouse is published monthly by the Wheat Ridge Congregational Church, United Church of Christ. The deadline for copy is the 3 rd Tuesday of each month. Articles may be handwritten or typed, but we prefer plain text sent via to wheatridgeucc@gmail.com. Articles must indicate the name of the writer and/or sender. Unsigned articles are written by the editor. The church website is: News and photos for the website should be sent to the same address listed above. Sunday worship is at 10:00 a.m. Sunday School for children is held during morning worship beginning at approximately 10:20, following the Time With Our Children in the sanctuary. Adult Education begins at 9:00 a.m. every Sunday. Office hours are 9:00 to noon daily. Monday is the minister s day off. The pastor may be reached at (office), (cell), or wheatridgeucc@gmail.com. 6