Hello friends,

We are roughly halfway through our journey of 40 days in the wilderness in which we are spending time doing some honest self-reflection and which will lead us to the great Three Days of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

In our invitation to Lent that we heard on Ash Wednesday, we heard the goal of the journey that God has established: “We are created to experience joy in communion with God, to love one another, and to live in harmony with creation.”

Up to this point in our journey, I really hope you have taken time to consider what gets in the way of that communion, love and harmony. What are you doing to become closer to God and deepening that relationship?

In service a few weeks ago, I had asked you to do some self-reflection of what is getting in the way. I asked you to specifically think of the answer to the question, what keeps you from choosing to gather under God’s wings where safety and security are offered? You were then asked to write it down on a piece of paper. If you recall, I gathered those pieces of paper and told you that we would be doing something later with them.

I am sure you are wondering what we that something is. This year after our Good Friday service, we will be having a fire. We will each grab a candle on our way out of service and make our way outside. Outside we will spend a brief moment in prayer and then take one of the pieces of paper, it doesn’t have to be yours, and one by one throw them in the fire.

Why fire you might ask? This brief time outside is our way of celebrating the Vigil of Easter. This vigil usually happens on Saturday night, but we will be doing ours Friday. The Vigil of Easter is a night in which we experience God’s promise and the center of our faith which is we are claimed and cleansed, renewed in death and resurrection of Christ.

We will cleanse ourselves of all those things that are holding us back by burning our written words and preparing ourselves for the celebration of the Good News that Easter brings.

Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again!!!

Pastor Jess