Pastor Peace’s 2021 Easter Letter

Some shout “Hosanna”; Some shout “Crucify”
Some shout “Jesus”; Some shout “Barabbas”
Some wava palms; Some shake their fists, today we choose.

Some come to the Table; Some storm from the Table.
Some proclaim Jesus; Some deny Jesus.
Some carry the Cross; Some run from the Cross, today we choose.

Some weep; Some conspire,
Some follow; Some hide,
Some believe; Some betray. Today we choose
to shout for life, to follow the cross,
to break bread, to hold belief,
to trust love, and tell the world,
“We choose to follow Jesus.”

These are the words we spoke at the end of our Palm/Passion Sunday worship. With these words, we entered into the Holy Week..

Dear Lodi UMC family and friends,

What do you choose this day?

You receive this letter from me because I know that you belong to the Lord of life and that you have decided to follow Jesus. At your baptism and confirmation, in corporate worship and in personal prayer time, you have confessed that Jesus is your Lord and Savior. He is the risen one who forever defeated death. The grave could not hold him. The rulers and authorities were disarmed by his power of love which was to give himself to the cross so the lovers of power were ashamed of the violence. We are not ashamed of his cross. We are proud of it and grateful for it. Jesus is the true and complete manifestation of God’s life-giving, life-redeeming, and life-fulfilling love. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. This is the one we have decided to follow, and yet choices are upon us every day in our Christian inner battle.

What do you choose this day? You shall not enclose yourself. That is what the spirit of fear wants in order to enslave us to the power of death. The message of Easter convinces us that we shall open ourselves up to the present and the future: what God is doing in our midst and what God holds for our future. Christ is risen! Notice the present tense of this proclamation. This isn’t an event in the past. It is an ever-present happening that fuels our living and vibrant faith! Christ is alive and working through you and me! The importance of our Savior’s resurrection as a continuing event for today, tomorrow, and forever after is even more profound than ever before. Having gone through a lot in the pandemic, we set our eyes and hearts on what God has granted us and thus is available for our present and future.

If I pick one greatest lesson that the pandemic has reminded me, it is that no one is saved alone. We are bound to one another. Because of that, connection and compassion, solidarity and reciprocity are life-sustaining qualities. This is how God designed us, and therefore, this is what I believe the risen Christ invites us to choose this day.

Choose Christ. Fear will be dispelled and life will be free.
Choose Christ’s community. Stones will be removed and life will thrive.
For Christ is risen.

Hallelujah!
Pastor Peace
pastorpeace@lodiumc.org