Looking Ahead to March 30, 2008 -- 2nd Sunday of Easter

The Scripture Readings for this week are:

• From the Life of the Early Church: Acts 2:14a, 22-32
• Psalm 16 (VU p.738)
• From the Letters of the Church: 1 Corinthians 15:35-44
• From the Gospel: John 12:24-26

The Hymns for this week are:

• 409 Morning Has Broken
• 296 This is God’s Wondrous World
• 703 In the Bulb There Is a Flower
• 424 May the God of Hope Go With Us

The Sermon title for this week is Life From Dead Ground

Early Thoughts: What happens when we plant a seed? How does death and resurrection work in a organic model?

One of the models we use for explaining Easter to children is the idea of a seed or bulb being planted and growing. Of course this is in part because Easter in the Northern Hemisphere falls in the (this year very early) spring. And spring is the time when we look with excitement (if my daughters are any indication)for the emergence of grass from the snow and then the buds swelling on trees and new growth pushing out of the ground.

In this reading from John Jesus points out that a seed falling into the ground dies so that it can grow. (and obviously John is using this as foretelling the Easter story)

What grows from the seed is the same but different, as Paul tells the Corinthians. Resurrection is not the rebirth of what was. We plant seeds and tend the growth which God provides. In our community we are looking for signs of resurrection amidst lots of signs of death. What seeds and bulbs are lying in the fertile soil that is our lives? What new growth is waiting to come bursting from the dead frozen sod?

Come and join us in this Easter season as we talk about what resurrection means in this place and time.
--Gord