These words will again be published in our annual Easter ad in the News of Delaware County. Several thousand of your neighbors will see them.

For sure, far more people will see this ad than will attend our service on Easter Sunday. More me, even more important than attracting a crowd, the primary value of this ad is to let people know that Easter means much more to us than bunnies and bonnets and eggs.

Through this means, a portion of our story is disseminated to the world at large.

For us, Easter is the grand climax of the drama of Holy Week.

Far from memorializing the death of a person in ages past,
Easter celebrates the beginning of something new,
something altogether different.

We celebrate Easter as the continuation of God’s interaction with creation. God’s involvement with the world is not confined to the stories of old. Easter marks the beginning of a whole new way of defining God, a whole new faith, a whole new relationship, a whole new way of living.

The poet says it is the sun’s birthday . . .
the birthday of life and of love and wings.

Easter changes reality.

It redefines the laws of physics.

It brings a new way of looking at things:
life and death,
other people and ourselves!

For us, Easter is about discovering sparks of the Divine within ourselves and in our daily lives.

Easter is a huge birthday party for us as we celebrate the discovery and revelation of the true nature of our God -- and of ourselves.

Once a year we focus on tending the ears of our ears and the eyes of our eyes to become more awake and more open to observing and celebrating the presence of Christ in our world, in our lives, today.

We do this, because like those early disciples, we so often look for love and truth and meaning in all the wrong places. When they found the tomb empty, God’s messenger asked "Why do you look for the living here among the dead?" That question is asked of us, as well.

Either we don’t know where to look, or we are afraid to look in the right places.

Come, help us celebrate the Presence of Christ this Easter Sunday,

See you in church,