Looking Ahead to April 1, 2018 -- Easter Sunday

This being the first Sunday of the month we will include the celebration of Communion in our Easter celebration.

Also because it is the first Sunday of the month we will be having our 2nd Offering. This is a monthly offering taken specifically to fund our Outreach program, which offers grocery vouchers to people who have been referred by one of the social agencies in Grande Prairie.

And because it is Easter Sunday the Handbell Choir will be playing during the worship (and the Sr. Choir will be singing 2 anthems and the Jr Choir will also sing -- I am thinking the sermon might need to be shorter!)

This year we will hear the Easter morning story as told by John (John 20:1-18)

The Sermon title is April Fool's?.

Early Thoughts: They thought they had won! The troublemaker was dead and buried. The kingdoms of the world had triumphed over the one who proclaimed the kingdom of God.

And then...

SURPRISE!

Easter comes as a surprise to everyone in the Gospels. Nobody is expecting it. In fact most people do not even recognize what has happened at first. Jesus is dead (everyone is clear on that....as a minister in my childhood pointed out, if the Romans wanted you dead you would be good and dead). By all appearances, the story has come to a tragic end.

Somehow it is a little fitting that this year the surprise is revealed on April Fools day. There is a tradition that Easter was a grand joke God played on the powers of the world (usually personified as Satan). Just when they think they have one God plays a final card and everything is turned around. The powers are in fact defeated, death has lost its sting. Life wins!

Where do we think the powers of the world have won this year? What has happened to help kill the promise of the kingdom this year? Where might we be surprised to find that the dead is indeed alive?
--Gord