07204
April 5, 2007

It’s Friday, but Sunday is coming!

An Easter message to the PC(USA) from the stated clerk

by Clifton Kirkpatrick
PC(USA) stated clerk

LOUISVILLE — I don’t know about you, but I sure need Easter this year!

     Throughout the season of Lent this year I have felt deep pain and anguish in my own family, among my friends and colleagues, in our divided church, and in our world with all of its wars, conflicts, and injustices.

     However, in the midst of all of our disappointments there is good news. The good news of the Lenten season is that we are not alone in our struggles and our suffering. Jesus, too, experiences the pains and sufferings of the world and has gone all the way to the cross. He is with us “even in the valley of the shadow of death.”

     The even better news is that Easter is coming! Suffering and pain are not the last words.

     When Jesus rose on Easter Sunday, it was and is God’s triumphant announcement of the power of suffering love to overcome evil and to transform the world in accord with God’s good purposes.

     It is a reminder, in the spirit of Romans 8 and in the words of A Brief Statement of Faith, that “nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

     I have thought often as I eagerly anticipate Easter this year of the familiar refrain, “It’s Friday, but Sunday is coming!” Friends, this is the great truth of the gospel and the hope of the world.

     I look forward this Sunday, as I hope you do as well, to welcoming anew the power of the resurrected Christ into my life and into the life of the world as I join other believers in boldly proclaiming, “Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!”

     A happy and joyous Easter to you all!