Author: Webmaster

By Rev. Johnson M John

It’s been said that this world is a tough place to live. The disasters happening around the world ask us to believe so. And parts of it certainly are. People have become tough and unpredictable day after day. Things have become complex and uncertain as days pass by. But it’s just not extreme places that are hard to live in. The regular parts of the world are tough too. We learn this as children. We start learn to walk and right way what happens? We trip and fall down on the sidewalk and skin our knees and bump our heads on rocks! We bang up against things and it hurts! Ouch!

Yet, God created this world and God said it was good when He created the oceans and the land, and all the rocks and creatures in it and God hopes we’ll love it, care for it, and think it’s good too!

But what God didn’t create and what God doesn’t love is the ways that we tend to run our societies. God doesn’t love it that we’ve created a world where we live by the law of the jungle, where “might makes right,” where we compete and hoard, where powers and domination systems place the overwhelming majority of humanity into abject poverty and misery.

The first major, massive scale, instance of this kind of human created system of power and might was the world’s first territorial empire, the Roman Empire. Rome conquered many nations through the means of military, political, economic, and ideological exploitation and domination.

It’s with this empire that Jesus struggled. He was at war against all powers of destruction and injustice. He didn’t use the world’s ways against the world. He simply said that the worldly powers are impotent – they have no power that the real power is with God and in the Kingdom of God!

Jesus demonstrated that power by reaching out to the people who society had rejected; and He invited people to repent and to change their way of thinking and living so that they could break free from ways which collaborated with the Empire so that they could start living freely and abundantly in deep community and communion with one another – sharing all that they have and turning away from the domination system which sought to oppress them!

Resurrection of Jesus could be said as an act of Civil Dis-obedience against the dominant powers. Against the powers of death and violence. God was breaking Roman law! And Jewish Hypocrisy.

Today we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ amidst of these powers of death and violence. This has permeated everywhere in the society; even within the churches. We celebrate Easter in our struggles.

Jesus puts forward two icons of Easter to fortify our own struggles

1. The angel sitting on the rock.The angels in Matthew’s gospel are to deliver the Good News. The Good News is only ever preceded by one short, preliminary sentence: “Don’t be afraid.””Don’t be afraid, Zechariah, your wife Elizabeth will bear a son and you will name him John.””Don’t be afraid, Mary.”

   “Don’t be afraid, shepherds. I bring you good news of great joy that shall be to all people.”

   “Don’t be afraid, Joseph, take Mary as your wife. Her baby is conceived by the Holy Spirit. Name him Jesus; he’s going to save all people from their sins.”

   “Don’t be afraid,” the angels say. And then they deliver the good news for us.

   Answer the door. It’s an angel at your door with a delivery.

   “Don’t be afraid. He has been raised from the dead and is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him. This is my message for you.” Sign here.

   The angel’s work is done. And now ours begins. Will we sign for the good news, unwrap it, and live by it?

   Will we sign for the good news that your future is a series of situations, whether garden bowers or graveyards, where Christ awaits you to meet defeat with victory, to meet disappointment with hope, to meet death with life?

   He is not here. He has been raised. Come and see the places where he lay.

   Today an angel, yes the same one who delivered the tidings of Easter asks us not to be afraid. Let us proclaim this message to the world. As God unfolds his plan for the history let us abide in God’s providence and rely upon God’s love for the world.

2. The rolled back stone at the entrance of the tomb. The stone symbolized not only the power of the empire, but also the suspicion that the Jewish leaders had.It’s a suspicion from the unbelieving heart. They were worried about the blasphemy that could happen. It was all about the forces which propagate the message of death and violence. In these times of complex life realities we tend to be pessimistic. Our hopes are gone. We rely more on our logics and resources than on the might of God which failed Roman Empire and Jewish conspiracy. God is at work in history. He makes alive history for the people in exile. So it is for us to be at his command to work with God in history. The rolled back stone, encourages us to engage with the powers against our God’s Kingdom.

Today, the living resurrected Christ stands before us with these icons. He knows us and He knows our fears. We’re afraid of economic hardship, we’re afraid of debt, we’re afraid of diminishing resources and environmental destruction. We’re afraid of caste tensions and the growing chasm between the rich and the poor. We’re afraid of the hurt between men and women, between people of different nations, and we’re afraid of a Church that’s become co-opted and corrupted by the ways of Empire. We fear for ourselves and our loved ones.

Like those first disciples, we’re afraid of the power of the systems of the world with their armies, their courts, their prisons, their threats. Like them, we fear our own powerlessness, weakness, and sense of inadequacy. We’re insecure, frightened by our emotions, and wary of trusting one another. We feel both the guilt of our sin and the vulnerability of our broken places. Above all, we fear pain, suffering and death.

We too are hiding behind locked doors and are afraid to come out. Jesus knows our fear and wants us to know His resurrection. He says, “Go, tell my disciples that I have risen and that I’m going before them!” Whether we view that resurrection as a physical one or as a spiritual one, the risen Christ tells us not to doubt but to believe!

Like those first disciples, we need to come out of hiding and see the risen Lord. Seeing is believing, and believing is knowing that we must turn and follow Jesus – not “believe the right things about him” – but follow him.

Yes Christ is risen Indeed… Alleluiah

By Soumya Rachel Thomas

Worship is simply a manifestation of our faith. Only through faith can we whole heartedly participate and engage in meaningful worship. The book of Hebrews not only tells us that we must have faith in order to be pleasing to God, but it also shows us what faith is. Through examples of faithful individuals of the past, the Lord has clothed the concept of faith so that we might see and understand what “FAITH” involves. The story of Cain and Abel serves as a perfect example in this situation. “It was faith that made Abel offer to God a better sacrifice than Cain’s. Through his faith he won God’s approval as a righteous man, because God himself approved of his gifts. By means of his faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead” (HEB 11:4) It is surprising to see that at the very beginning of man’s history, the first thing that man sought to do by faith, was to worship the Almighty God.

In today’s times, people all over the world are looking for a religion that they like. Many go from church to church trying to find the one that appeals to them. When they find the things they want to do and hear the things they want to hear they will worship there. Yet, when we adapt religion to please ourselves, whether it is concerning how we live our lives or what we do in our worship assemblies, God is not pleased. Whatever we teach or practice must be based on the authority of God’s word. Only then can our worship be offered by faith. To worship God acceptably, one must have faith in God and follow his direction. Faith always seeks to worship as God directs. That is when worship becomes a celebration of our faith.

Another problem that acts as a hindrance for ‘Celebrating’ one’s faith, is this new trend where in people identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious”. In other words they have some feeling, some intuition of something greater, but feel allergic to the Church.

All of us can understand the moments when we too get disillusioned by the Church. The Church can be slow, plodding, and dictatorial. Sometimes they may frustrate our desires by asking us to submit to the will of others. But at the same time, Church is the only mechanism human beings know to perpetuate ideologies and actions. If books were enough, why have universities? If guns enough, why have an Army? If self-governance is enough, then let’s get rid of the Parliament. I have found too often that when people say, “I stay away from the Church — too much politics,” what they mean is that they did not get their way. But what beats me is why anyone would miss out on the opportunity to Worship God, just because of something as futile as “Church Politics”? But it is important to notice that things like church politics affect the youth of today. They understand what is happening around them. And it affects them to such a large extent, that they are willing to give up on a chance to worship our God and Savior. This is something that the elders of our Church should think about and address immediately, as it is the need of the hour.

Worship “teaches” us in a powerful way whose we are even as we offer our prayers. We discover a presence before whom the circumstances of life can be laid and through whom we can imagine a sojourn of faithful and hope-filled response to God with the guidance of Jesus. It serves as an essential pathway through which we were nourished and fashioned as a people of God.

Preaching, Prayer, Music and Dance as a pathway in Meaningful Worship

Worship invites us into preaching, prayer, music and dance. These pathways are central means of entering into praise of God, the story of God proclaimed in Scriptures, and our own stories. These same pathways engage us and teach us about celebrations of the high seasons of Christmas and Easter, and special celebrations. Through these pathways, we hear and participate in the announcement of the good news. But we also enter into these pathways with questions like: “So what? What does this mean for my life? Is this something new in the telling of this story? What will these experiences of worship tell me that I don’t already know? What preexistent or new truths borne out by personal experience will be corroborated by the experience of worship?” Through these pathways, worship invites us to address our search for belief. They become avenues not simply of religious expression, but of answers to a quest for religious answers. The best part about these paths is that you don’t need to be the best in whatever you do. As in, you don’t need to be the most melodious singer and the most gracious dancer to be able to praise God. Because the Great God loves you the way you are. Hence, celebrate your faith through a form of worship that you like and that is well pleasing to God. I prefer singing and dancing and I truly believe what Chris Tomlin has to say, “I feel alive; I come alive; I am alive on GOD’S GREAT DANCE FLOOR”!