This Sunday continues the Easter season (it’s not just a day, but a whole season of celebrating resurrection!), and we kick off a Spring sermon series using the Revised Common Lectionary scriptures. It is called

BUILDING BLOCKS: Ancient Church Lessons for the Future Church
Believers in Jesus had quite the journey to recover from the shock of the cross and resurrection to the formation of a new community. We have much to learn from them! What commitments are foundational to who we are? We believe in what we cannot see, experience the resurrected Christ for ourselves, learn to share in community, ask questions as we grow in faith, draw connections for those with other beliefs, draw strength from shared prayer and value all who are part of the Body of Christ.

This week, we begin the series with the story we read every single year on this Sunday after Easter Sunday: the story of so-called “Doubting Thomas”. We consider what it means to a growing community of faith to engage with our doubts and questions; how that can be valuable for all of us. We also think about getting beyond belief or a system of dogma and into the realm of true faith and trust in a dynamic relationship with the living God.

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During the season of Lent, and this last week in Holy Week, we focused on growing gardens, tending the life that is right in front of us, rather than constantly climbing ladders of what this world defines as success. We have been embracing “good enough” lives and “good enough” selves that are worthy of love, no matter what. We have been acknowledging the suffering that is a natural part of life, and we have practiced compassion as we deal with the realities and limitations that invite us to let go of perfectionism and the incessant
drive toward something other than our own real, holy, and “blessed-regardless” lives.

And now we encounter Easter. It is a day we proclaim that while death is a part of life–even little “deaths” along the way of dreams, of love, of the way we thought life would go–even though this is a part of life, we are part of a faith that invites us to consider that the Good Gardener is always tending us, abiding with us, beyond any kind of death that faces us.

CHRIST IS RISEN!!!

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This annual service at COA serves as our journey with Jesus to death on the cross; through arrest, betrayal, denial and trial. This year, with Jewish Passover beginning on 4/5, we are focusing our service on Jesus’ final meal with His closest followers and friends. What does He choose to say to them and how will they remember this “Last Supper” once they have experienced His death? How do we remember important people and things in light of what unfolds in our lives? Come and sit in the seats of the disciples on that night and meditate with us on Jesus’ final days.

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Today is the start of Holy Week. Every year, this week is full to the brim of tension, fear, suffering and somehow also beauty. And the start of it is this Palm Sunday procession. Jesus needs help from His disciples to organize His own parody of the Roman processional parade into Jerusalem. His followers celebrate and it is a parade of joy, but for Jesus, it is a parade of protest. Jesus knew that this cheering crowd would soon turn into a clamoring mob. And He needed His people to go to the rest of the way. He cannot do it alone. Even Jesus Himself needed other human beings in order to complete His journey. What does it mean for our “good enough” journeys that we need each other? That we are a group project?

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This last Sunday before Holy Week is one where we focus our attention on a truth we often prefer to ignore: we are fragile. We have limits. We are mortal. We are all broken. We are not God. Being fragile can either be denied and avoided at all costs, or it can be embraced, and so enhance our humanity. This week, we explore how Jesus modelled His own fragility when He had to face the death of a dear friend. Even knowing that resurrection would come soon for this friend, Jesus weeps. What does that mean for us? How do we face our own pain and limitations? How can our own fragility and vulnerability guide us with courage into Jesus’ journey to the cross in the weeks to come?

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