Jamey's Newsletter: Sunday, April 17, 2022
I want you to hear this message today: Jesus is the only one that loves us as sinners. The god of addiction, the god of pride, or the god of selfishness will never love you as deeply as the love of Jesus. And the message of Easter is that the love of Jesus is the only love that is powerful enough to redeem your past, bring new life to the present, and give you the future with hope.
Jesus is the only one that can lead us out of our graves. He is the only would that can walk us out of the cemetery of despair. He is the only one powerful enough to bring new life.
Death was in the air. The ink was dry on Pontius Pilate’s death order, and the dust from the stone being rolled into place had settled. And yet, three days later, Jesus is calling the women beyond the grave to new life. We can come seeking the living among the dead, but he won’t be there. New life is not found in dead places.
If Jesus has done this to death, imagine what he can do in your life? Death took away his life, and he destroyed death, imagine what stones he could roll back in your life?
Jamey
Weekly Prayer
Lord, while the world goes about seeking the living among the dead, may we hear Christ calling us forward toward resurrection today. May we be a church that plots resurrection for our community and world. May we indeed be resurrection people. May today be our resurrection day. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Meme of the Week
Coming up at Gainesville First UMC
New Message Series
Sunday, April 24 / 11am / Lakeside
To celebrate the beginning of the Lakeside Worship season, we will have one worship service on Sunday, April 24. We invite everyone to join us at 11am at the Lakeside venue as we come together as one congregation for a time of worship and fellowship. We will have a tent set up in the parking lot and serve food after the service.
We look forward to seeing you on land or by boat. Invite someone to join you on this special day.
*There will be no 8:30am Classic Worship, 9:30am Chapel Worship, or 10:50am Modern Worship this day.
Weekly Blessing
On this Easter morning, let us look again at the lives we have been so generously given and let us let fall away the useless baggage that we carry – old pains, old habits, old ways of seeing and feeling – and let us have the courage to begin again. Life is very short, and we are no sooner here than it is time to depart again, and we should use to the full the time that we still have.
We don’t realize all the good we can do. A kind, encouraging word or helping hand can bring many a person through dark valleys in their lives. We weren’t put here to make money or to acquire status or reputation. We were sent here to search for the light of Easter in our hearts, and when we find it we are meant to give it away generously.
May the spirit and light of this Easter morning and the special spirit and light of this abbey at Corcomroe bless us all, watch over us and protect us on our journey, open us from the darkness into the light of peace and hope and transfiguration.
John O’Donohue, Irish poet and theologian
Dawn Mass Reflections at Corcomroe Abbey