Spring is the season of rebirth. More than ever, we need rebirth. A year of quarantine, a year of pandemic, a year of social distancing, a year of wearing masks, a year of not hugging those you love, a year of fear and uncertainty, a year of death and illness. We need rebirth! As a nation, as a community, as a church, as a family, as individuals, we need rebirth. The season of spring, the season of rebirth and light follows winter, the season of dying and darkness. Without the darkness and death of winter, we would not have the season of spring and rebirth. As the days grow longer, as the earth slowly warms, new growth begins anew, and our hearts rejoice. We feel it in our bones, we feel it in our spirits: this spring differs more than those in the past for the darkness we have passed through is more profound than any we have experienced before. We need rebirth! Easter is also about rebirth and resurrection, about new growth and making things new. Easter, the celebration of rebirth and resurrection follows on Good Friday, the day of darkness and death when our Lord and Savior poured out his life and died on a cross for our sins. Without Good Friday, without Jesus’ death on the cross, we would not have Easter, the day he defeated death, rose from the dead, and gave us life eternal for those who believe. As we enter Holy Week with this Sunday’s Easter Cantata, know that our season of hardship, our season of darkness will soon be behind us. Let us rejoice and give thanks to the Lord our God for His mighty work in passing through darkness and death into light and life eternal!
1 Cor 15:3-4: For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.