Upcoming Events

Sunday April 7: SKIDs and TIDs from noon until 4pm
Saturday April 13: The youth pick up trash along Freemason Run Road
Saturday April 13: Clean up at the church
Sunday April 28: Annual Homecoming Service with lunch to follow

Pastor's Penpoint - Now, the Hard Part - April 2013

"Take a guard," Pilate answered. "Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how." So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard. Matthew 27: 62-66

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"Waiting is the hardest part ..."

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

The chief priests and the Pharisees were in a serious jam. The crowds whom they had worked into a frenzy, and whom they had hoped would witness Jesus being exposed as a fraud, instead witnessed the sun being eclipsed and the earth shaking; rumors about the temple curtain being torn open were flying around Jerusalem. The event they had hoped would make them religious heroes had backfired big-time. And the crisis wasn't over... Judas had told them that Jesus had spoken of being raised from the dead on the third day. Jesus was dead and in the tomb for now, but if they were going to maintain control of the people, they would have to make sure Jesus stayed there.

The hearts of the Pharisees and priests were hardened beyond the point of seeing God's power at work. Instead of spending the Sabbath meditating on Scripture and resting as God commanded, they spent it plotting to keep the tomb sealed. They were breaking the same commandment that they had tried to trap Jesus into breaking so many times. The disciples, in the meantime, were hiding out in the upper room, observing the Sabbath more out of exhaustion and fear than out of reverence for God. They had forgotten that Jesus had told them he would rise again on the third day.

The Pharisees thought they could keep the Son of God behind a rock by sealing it with wax and posting a guard. They dreaded Sunday because they feared Jesus would somehow come back. The disciples, on the other hand, had forgotten that it was the Son of God behind the rock. They dreaded Sunday because they feared he was not coming back.

Now, the hard part ... we must neither fear nor forget that Jesus is coming back. Fear means we either do not believe, or are unsure we will be prepared. Forgetting means we have either taken him for granted or underestimated him. He promised his disciples that he would rise again, and he did; he promised us he will come again, and he will.

~ Pastor Todd