Pineridge Blog

I want to wish you all a Happy Easter!

I really do wish you all of the happiness bunnies, eggs and warm weather can provide. As we are emerging from our long COVID winter, I know that even limited family gatherings will no doubt bring much happiness this Easter Sunday. I wish you happiness of celebrating and knowing the Resurrection of Jesus. I pray that the great Good News of new life, abundant life seeps down into your soul, nourishing dry places, mending broken places, bringing light into darkness and making you truly happy.

Easter brings its own level of happiness each year, but the joy of Easter is not about hiding the ragged edges of the world and pre-tending everything is OK when it plainly isn’t. We have hope, but we are all finding our way along carefully. Nor is Easter a magic wand that fixes, fills in and smooths away all of the “issues” which still remain. The real joy of Easter is in knowing that whatever we face at any moment, the final word is life not death. Most days that is hard to even remember, much less believe. Sometimes it is hard to reconcile the competing facts that Easter is true and life is still hard. Maybe having faith means being able to hold both of those things at the same time in our minds and hearts. The Risen Jesus still bore the wounds of the Cross.
Henry Knox Sherrill said once, “The joyful news that He is risen does not change the contemporary world. Still before us lie work, discipline, sacrifice. But the fact of Easter gives us the spiritual pow-er to do the work, accept the discipline, and make the sacrifice.”

Happy Easter!,
Jim