In the video and pastoral letter below, Bishop Escobedo-Frank reminds us that being Easter People involves remembering to be a people who believe in the resurrection of Christ and to be a people who invite regular resurrection moments in our daily life. Watch the video below, followed by her pastoral letter. A transcript of the video is also below the letter.
Dear Easter People,
Remembering that we are Easter people is not as easy as it seems. It is easier to grab onto the suffering that occurs during the season of Lent. We can relate to suffering. We see and experience it regularly. It feels a bit comfortable to be people who face difficulties. To look for the living among the dead.
What is harder, is remembering to be a people who believe in the resurrection of Christ and to be a people who invite regular resurrection moments in our daily life. If we believed in the continued grace of resurrection, our lives could look like this:
While in need of healing, we see ourselves as whole and loved.
During moments of great pain, we feel the hope of release from the current agony.
When loneliness is ours to bear, we reach out to be a friend to someone else.
When fear rises, so too does faith and courage.
These seemingly opposites happen simultaneously in the life of Christ followers. And perhaps they do because we are grounded in a story that has both death and resurrection.
This coming Sunday we will focus on being a people who experience the resurrection of Christ. We remember the miracle, the surprise, the audacity that a human/divine form could breathe, walk, and be present again. Jesus broke through all our rules: the rules of religion, the rules of physics and biology, the rules of social norms. And he gave us a new rule: the rule of love and resurrection. Love that is consistent and eternal. Resurrection that is ongoing and forever hopeful. This is who we are; an Easter people who know both death and life after death.
He is risen! He is risen indeed!
Grace y paz,
Dottie
Video Transcript:
Hello, everyone. I’m Dottie Escobedo Frank, Bishop of the California-Pacific Conference. It’s good to be with you today. I wanted to come and give you a special Easter blessing. The thing I love about Easter is that it comes through a hard experience of Lent, and the experience of Jesus facing the difficult times of his life, and actually facing them unto death. It reminds me that when we go through life and things are hard, that we have hope into the future. And also, it reminds us that if Jesus even faced death and said death was not going to keep him down, that we too can go through our struggles of life and know that God is with us, and that there are resurrection moments in our lives, too.
So, as you come into this Easter moment, I pray that you feel the joy. I pray that you feel the courage rising up. And the strength to know that we know the end of the story. And it involves a resurrection moment in our history, but also resurrections that happen in our everyday lives. I’m praying for you. I’m with you. I love you. I pray that God continues to be very near to you during this season of resurrection.