Good News In April

                                                          Good News In April                                                                                    As April slips in with its promise of warmth and flowers and green grass, we reflect on how the weather has gone since we officially welcomed Spring a few weeks ago.  And, all we can remember is being taunted with an occasional taste of warmth immediately followed by a crash back to frosty.  The scenery remains brown and the trees bare.  April is our month of hope.
    Hope is a big feature of April as we see an end to Lent and the triumph of Easter during this month.  Our world needs a dose of hope.  After 40 days of self-examination through the season of Lent, we are desperately in need of personal encouragement and a reason for optimism.  After daily infusions of news on a national and world-wide front, we’re searching for a reason to avoid discouragement and pessimism. If Holy Week ended on Good Friday, we’d be totally out of reasons to keep going. But then there’s Easter. God has provided Hope.
    Sometimes we, as Christians, feel like we’re under siege and greatly in the minority in a world that rejects all that we value.  We live in a world that seems to be satisfied with Good Friday.  And so it’s sometimes hard to feel or display the joy we’re supposed to have because we have heard the Good News.  
    It’s time to step back.  It’s time to talk to God, and maybe recite, once again, John 3:16.  It’s time to reflect on what we know is the Truth.  And perhaps spend some time re-counting our blessings.
    Easter is the ultimate reason for Hope.  Not just for The Easter Breakfast or the Easter Egg Hunt.  Not just for the empty Cross with the white cloth draped over.  It is the Day of Resurrection!  We enjoy the fellowship in the church.  We love to gaze upon the spring flower display.  But this is the News the whole world has been promised – and needs.  Easter is our time to enthusiastically radiate joy, love and hope even, especially, after we leave the sanctuary.  A blessed Easter to everyone.    Virginia                                                        Love the Lord, all his saints!  
             The Lord preserves the faithful, but the proud he pays back in full.
                          Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.
                        psalm 31:23-24