Dear Friends in Christ,

I woke up Monday to a different world than the one in which I went to sleep late Saturday night. Easter changes everything.

Because Grace is a loving and caring place, many of you have kindly asked Father Jon and I how we have been doing during the busy seasons of Lent and Holy Week. The truth is, I know that many of you were just as busy as we were. Grace is a place of high commitment, and many of you were busy in the sacristy, in the choir loft, in the parish office, in the Food Pantry, sitting at your computers typing the emails to organize it all. (If the Holy Week liturgies weren’t enough, we also had the light fixtures in the entire building replaced the week before, thanks to the diligence of Liz Rugaber.)

Even if you weren’t busy at behind the scenes, I know that many of you were showing Christian commitment in your own lives—seeing your Lenten disciplines through to the very end, finding ways to observe Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, simply trying to pray.

It all culminates in the magnificent mystery of Easter. Christ is resurrected! And so everything changes.

Suddenly, the landscape has shifted around us, in so many ways. My hours that were full of proofing bulletins are suddenly flexible again. Those Lenten disciplines hang slack like empty garments.

More to the point, we have moved from a season of effort and striving into a different time. Now, we receive this mystery that is pure gift. Now, we simply try to understand how vast the goodness of God is.

If you are feeling weighted (as busy people often do), I encourage you to lay down your load. Don’t keep trying to do business as usual. Jesus didn’t go to the grave and back to that we could keep on living as we always have.

Part of being Christian after Easter is learning to swim in the deep water of God’s goodness. Jesus invites us, above all else, to know abundant life.

I hope you seek that life. I believe with all my heart that it is there for you.

Yours in Christ,
Anne+