This year, we celebrated “Easter” (Resurrection Sunday) on Sunday, April 24th. Why so late, many of us wondered? Here’s why: For many years, it has been agreed that Easter falls on the first Sunday, after the full moon, that occurs on or after “the spring equinox” (March 21st). If the full moon falls on a Sunday, then Easter is the next Sunday. This means that Easter can fall as early as March 22nd, or as late as April 25th. Next year it falls on March 23rd, the second earliest date possible. Easter last fell on the latest possible date, 25 April in 1943, and will next fall on that date in 2038. However, this year it will fell on April 24th, just one day before this latest possible date. (It’s from this that we get the phrase “moveable feast!”)
We celebrate it yearly, but the resurrection is more than just an event that happened once in history. It’s the source of the power we can experience in our own lives, every day. The same power that resurrected Jesus from death to life is available to us, and if we tap into it, we’ll see amazing transformation in our own lives, too.
The apostle Paul wrote “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection…” (Philippians 3:10)
As we live the month of May, following this year’s Easter celebration, I wonder if we are living as though “Easter has the power to change us!”
In his book “24 hrs. That Changed the World,” Adam Hamilton writes about the change that occurred in those first followers of Christ. Those same disciples that were filled with fear and doubt and despair, were changed after the Resurrection. They changed. Now, “they faced life with hope and confidence. When we hear, trust, and celebrate this Easter story, we reclaim the same faith and discover the same joy and hope the first disciples had. Easter has the power to change us.” That same Peter who denied Christ three times, later became a leader of the church, and wrote these words: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”
Pastor Hamilton has served as pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection for over twenty years. He says, “People ask me, ‘Do you really believe this story of the resurrection?’ And my answer is always the same. I not only believe it, I am counting on it.”
Grateful for a God we can count on and His Son’s Resurrection power available to all of us!
Pastor Bec.
