We are a resurrected people who put our whole trust in the power of our God to do for us what we couldn’t possibly do for ourselves. Easter is the celebration that God stands ready, willing, and able to bring us from death to life—right now.

     It’s easy to forget that Jesus was fully human.  He loved his disciples but he needed good friends that weren’t front and center in his ministry.

My first thought in preparing today’s message was to emphasize all the different groups—religious and political—of Jesus’ day and explain how each would have been relatively unhappy about the vision Jesus had for the Kingdom of God. I was going to rely on this extended quotation from author, Brian McClaren’s book, The Secret Message of Jesus. I decided to go in another direction, but you students of the Bible might find the following helpful both in setting up the backdrop of Jesus’ ministry as well beginning to understand why there was so much resistance to Jesus by so many people. 

     I enjoyed Pastor Jessica’s sermon Sunday in which she looks at the Sermon on the Mount, and specifically the Beatitudes of Matthew 5 as “a map of where we can find Jesus.”  Listening to her exploration of where and how we might best discover Jesus, Jessica did point out his unique identification with the poor and hurting of our world.  It reminded me of the following from a Catholic theologian and churchwoman.