Well...another Lenten season and Easter Sunday in the books. Whew, what a action-packed couple of months. I happen to love the transition from winter to spring, from my least favorite season to the season that is perhaps my most favorite of the year. Since coming to Fernandina, one of the new things I have come to love about the season is the church's annual retreat to Camp Montgomery. The picture above is from that retreat (the weekend of Palm Sunday), and it captures the joy of our family (plus Addie Edwards) just moments before our "Minute to Win It" style "Amazing Race." What fun! Looking back on the past number of weeks, I am so grateful for the Lenten journey, in particular our Wednesday noon time worship services and the Bible studies each Wed evening that centered on the Lord's Prayer. I was reminded this season of how much I enjoy the dialogue, how much I really love teaching, and how much I enjoyed getting to know a number of members of my flock as we spent time together in study. It was a rich, rewarding experience.
Holy week was exhaustingly rich as well. We did a unique Maundy Thursday with the Methodist Church where Beth and I led worship and shared communion. Following the service a very talented guy named Brad Sherrill offered a dramatic presentation of "The Exodus." It was long but so very powerful and really set the stage for a deeper understanding of all the Jesus accomplishes in the events of Good Friday. Good Friday was a rainy, nasty kind of day but a time that provided plenty of opportunity to reflect and to rest. There was not much rest on Saturday that included a HUGE Easter event at the church that we shared with the Methodists, a community Easter celebration with hundreds and hundreds of people in attendance. There were those inflatable slides and face painting and cotton candy, but I really enjoyed seeing the children interact with our dressed up biblical characters to learn about who they were and what they represented. I love the cooperation between our church and the Methodists. So good.
Sunday brought the sunrise service at Ft. Clinch where I got to pick guitar and sing a little with Terry Thrift. Then we had a pancake breakfast at the church, two worship services, and I had a premarital counseling session in between. It was a full, full morning. After some spiral cut honey ham and fixings, I took a fat nap. Thank God for naps. It seems like the past few days, I haven't been able to function without one.
As I dive in to this Easter season, I do so with a sense of gratitude for the many, many good things God has done in my life and ministry these past few months. I also intend on doing some reading of a new book by Bart Erhman, How Jesus Became God, where he offers some thoughts from a historical perspective about how a poor peasant preacher becomes exalted as the son of God. He claims to have moved in his journey from being a believer of Christ to an agnostic, focusing more on a variety of historical claims that bring into questions many classical claims of Christian theology (such as Joseph of Arimathea's convincing Pilate to allow him to bury Jesus in his own tomb). He abandons most if not all of the claims of classical Christian theology, so I am eager to read his presentation and to learn more about him, even though at the outset it is quite puzzling to me how one could make such a move. I would think that extensive study would affirm his faith in Christ rather than dismantle it.
One of my observations from ministry has to do with how some people believe less and less as they age and how others come to believe more and more over the years. I hope that as I grow in years and in understanding (and in faith) that I will fall into the latter category, growing more and more in my faith, rather than the former. I think of people such as Shirley Guthrie who certainly encountered plenty of instances of theodicy in life and yet his faith in God and the risen Christ deepened. Here's to faith deepening, trust in God's mysterious ways enlarging. Christ is risen! He's risen indeed!
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