Today we celebrate Easter!\u00a0 It is a day of Great Joy!\u00a0 Jesus Savior, our Lord and Savior has risen!<\/p>\n
It had appeared that Jesus was defeated by his enemies who had him arrested, “tried”, and crucified on a Cross but the Resurrection shows us that the Cross is not a sign of defeat.\u00a0 Christ is victorious over even death!\u00a0 The Cross is a sign of God’s love for us and his victory over sin.\u00a0 Jesus was obedient even to the point of death and for this God has exalted him, raised him up in the Resurrection.<\/p>\n
The news gets better.\u00a0 Jesus promises us a share in the Resurrection!\u00a0 All we have to do is die with Christ.\u00a0<\/p>\n
All we have to do is die with Christ?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, it is unlikely that any of us will spent the last twenty-four hours of our earthly lives like Jesus who prayed in the Garden, was arrested, “tried,” beaten, mocked, scourged, and crucified but we are called to die with him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dying with Christ is not a question of the manner of our earthly death.\u00a0 Dying with Christ is about the way we live our lives.\u00a0 Think about this – the enemies of Jesus had not been able to capture Jesus before, why now?\u00a0 Because Jesus handed himself over.\u00a0 Jesus handed himself over not to his enemies but to his Father’s will<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Jesus gave himself over to the Father’s Will in love.\u00a0 In fact, Jesus did this not in just his last 24 hours but throughout his whole ministry; his whole life.\u00a0 Everything Jesus did was about doing the Father’s will and helping (teaching)\u00a0us to do the same.<\/p>\n Our dying with Christ<\/em> begins in our baptism when we are reborn in the Spirit.\u00a0 But it does not end there.\u00a0 It is the way we are called to live our lives.\u00a0 We are called to always seek to do the Father’s Will.\u00a0 Is it easy?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 The things of this world can be tempting.\u00a0 Things like food and water are necessary for earthly life and are in fact good as the Lord’s creation.\u00a0 The problem is when we make earthly things more important than God.\u00a0 That is when we go down the path of sin.<\/p>\n It is difficult to always life as God calls us.\u00a0 We can fail and sin.\u00a0 But there is hope; hope that Jesus gives us.\u00a0 How?\u00a0 By dying for us on a Cross, Jesus pays the price for our sins.\u00a0 We can rejoice in the love that Jesus shows us; a love that is without bounds.\u00a0 We cannot take this love for granted.\u00a0 We must always try to do our best.\u00a0 We must always do what we can to avoid sin, to stay away from the temptations that are too difficult for us to resist; to always strive to do the Father’s will.<\/p>\n Then, when we do sin, we turn to Christ, who hung upon the Cross, and in the Resurrection proved that he is victorious over even sin and death.<\/p>\n Jesus Christ is Risen Today!\u00a0 Alleluia.<\/p>\n Peace,<\/p>\n Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today we celebrate Easter!\u00a0 It is a day of Great Joy!\u00a0 Jesus Savior, our Lord and Savior has risen! It had appeared that Jesus was defeated by his enemies who had him arrested, “tried”, and crucified on a Cross but the Resurrection shows us that the Cross is not a sign of defeat.\u00a0 Christ is …<\/p>\n