We finally made it to Easter, to Resurrection Sunday!  I hope and pray you feel the very presence of the risen Lord in your lives.  Indeed, Christ has risen from the dead, he is not bound by disease, or viruses, or pandemics, or pestilence, or even death.  Christ is alive and walks among us.

We have been and continue to go through some truly unbelievable and frightening times.  As of this writing, we have lost almost 26,000 friends, colleagues, family members, neighbors, police officers, fire officers, military personnel, grocery workers, transportation workers, and simply others we don’t even know.  It is a tragedy without precedent.  Whether we want to admit it or not, we are walking, sheltering, frightened people who desperately need to see and feel that Jesus Christ is real and is with us.

That’s exactly what Easter is all about.  On that first Easter, the followers and friends of Jesus were feeling exactly as we are right now.  They were frightened, and sheltering in place, filled with anxiety and trepidation.  It was into that kind of environment that Jesus walked.  Jesus walked through space and time, walls and locked doors to assure his friends he was very much alive.  He even went so far as to come back for a second visit just for Thomas who was truly feeling out of sorts.  Thomas just couldn’t believe without truly seeing Jesus.  Jesus made it real for Thomas by letting him see him and touch him.

Do we think Jesus would do any less for us?  For all of us who are feeling out of sorts, feeling as if we have lost our way and not sure what the future holds, Jesus is here.  How do I know this?  I can tell you exactly how I know this.  At the beginning of Lent I challenged all of us to give to a Lenten offering to help defray medical debt.  Then the order to stay at home, shelter in place, came.  Our in person worship was suspended.  I just knew that would doom our giving to our Lenten offering.  Guess what?  Today, we sent enough money from our offering to RIP Medical Debt to defray $781,600 worth of medical debt of those in need in Dallas County.  “He lives, he lives, Christ Jesus lives today!  He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.  He lives, he lives, salvation to impart!  You ask me how I know he lives?  He lives within my heart.”  And in your sacrificial giving, and loving, and being.

God bless you all.

Blessings and Peace,

Pastor Tom