Pastors share Easter message

Christians across the region celebrate Easter Sunday today. Here are snippets from sermons local pastors planned to share with their congregations this morning:

It’s a good thing to get an early start praising the risen Lord, tilting our heads back, our faces heavenward, and allowing the flood of his joy to start washing over us right now.

While his blood washes away the stain of our sins, his joy becomes the flood washing away the dust of a drought-stricken world, the grit that would have relentlessly ground down our lives into despair.

While Satan the accuser and a host of less poisonous but still dangerous and depressing finger-pointers and tongue-waggers hurl insults to shatter our joy, hobble our delight, and dry up our spirits, Christ, alive and life-giving, stands at the right hand of the Father defending us, upholding us, proclaiming the truth that we are his, and delighting to claim us.

Yes, the joy-flood started long ago, flowing forth from the angels’ words to the astonished women at the tomb: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!”

Because he lives, joy lives! “Our Joy ... hath no end.”

— Curtis Shelburne, 16th and Ave. D Church of Christ, Muleshoe

Easter is a wonderful time of year and a great celebration of the deep love God has for us. Easter is about the grand move of God to invite all people into relationship with him.

Easter truly is about Jesus, God made flesh, the anointed One, the man/God who was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, the one who lived a perfect life among us, chose to go to the cross and sacrificed himself for us.

It is about the realization that God chose to come to us and not simply leave us all alone only to fend for ourselves. But, he came and died that we might have forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Easter tells us that God wants to be in relationship with us!

A final truth about Easter, through Jesus the Bible tells us that God shows no favoritism. That God’s offer through Jesus Christ is for ALL people who might come to him, honor him, and live in and for him.

I pray for all of us this Easter that we will choose LIFE in Jesus, to step away from all the promises that have failed us and turn toward the God who loves us and rose from the dead to give us new LIFE.

— Bill Case, Kingswood United Methodist Church, Clovis

Well, it’s another Easter Sunday. This one Sunday of the year has come to be associated with people dressing up in extra nice clothes, egg hunts, family gatherings, and time off from work.

But it’s so much more than that. It’s a Sunday in which we celebrate in a special way, the historical fact of our Lord’s resurrection from the dead.

But the resurrection of Christ from the dead should do more than impact our lives once a year. As Christians, we don’t celebrate our Lord’s resurrection once a year; but every Sunday of the year!

We do so because we need to be inspired, reminded, and motivated to let the truth of his resurrection impact us every day of our lives.

— Dave McFadden, First Baptist Church, Portales