Weekly News | 4.17.26

Eastertide, with its 50 day celebration of the Resurrection, gives a slight taunt to Lent’s 40 days of self-mortification: “Anything you can do, I can do better! (And longer!)”

At Church of the Cross, we are shaped by our value of celebration. At times, celebration comes naturally. Other times, we inhabit and practice celebration as a discipline, trusting that the places where Lent lives on will one day be fully embraced and utterly transfigured by God’s new creation.

Celebration untethered to a celebration-worthy event (“It’s Tuesday! Have a treat!”) quickly becomes vanity. The excesses we associate with celebration can become a mask for despair.

But celebration tethered to genuine thanksgiving, to that which is deeply good and long-awaited - that is worthy of remembrance and revelry!

Eastertide invites us into celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. We feast on gratitude, calling to mind what God has done. We are invited to turn over in our hearts and minds, in our conversations and writings, and offer back to God and to our friends, ways and moments in which He has met us and others. We remember. And we give thanks.

Eucharist means “Thanksgiving.” When we celebrate the liturgy of the Table, we remember Jesus “gave thanks” at the Last Supper. We in turn thank God for giving us himself in Jesus, and ministering to us in real time through the bread and wine. We are transformed by thanksgiving.

During Eastertide, we will move from our American liturgy into the Kenyan liturgy. It is a gift to be able to worship in ways that our brothers and sisters in Kenya have prayerfully crafted. You will notice a difference!

The Kenyan liturgy offers us an opportunity to celebrate afresh. There is a joie de vivre, an exuberance we are invited to inhabit. Whether this way of worship comes naturally or is a discipline, may our voices join together as we lean into the Resurrection reality that will one day entirely enfold our own.

Grateful for you,

Sarah+