May 2022 Newsletter

Happy Easter Season! As I have mentioned in church, words cannot express how delighted I am to celebrate Easter will all of you here at Bethany. So many of us, including Pastors, sometime forget that Easter is an entire season of the church’s life. How easy it can be after the lillies are put away (or planted), after the eggs have been dyed and hidden (and hopefully found), that Easter isn’t over. Forty whole days Jesus walks with, talks with, and eats with his followers. They see him, they know him, but something is changed. How wonderful it is to have a savior who simply does not quit on us but conquers even death to be with us. Jesus is always Immanuel, God with us, not just at Christmas but for all time.

We all wish we could be in the presence of the resurrected Jesus. It is the stories of Easter that compel many of us to commit to a life of faith. What would it be like to be walking along a road with Jesus and have the scriptures explained to us, as happens on the road to Emmaus? That would have certainly been the best Bible study ever!

We do not have that. We have the unique and authoritative witness of the Scriptures. We have our lives of faith as they have been lived out in the church. The season of Easter is not a time when we say because Jesus has been raised we have it all figured out. It is, rather, a time to say even when things seem to be going differently than the way we expected them to go, we have a God who, in Jesus Christ, is relentless in his pursuit of being in community with us.

Our response to this is a renewal of the call of the church to demonstrate what being in loving community looks like. That is good, difficult work. It is the work the church is called to primarily. It is work that is grounded in the love that God has for each and every one of us.

In Christ,
Pastor Brian

SPRING CLEAN UP DAY - May 14 from 8am to noon
Join us, along with the Boy Scouts of Troop 2, on Saturday 5/14, to spruce up our gardens with mulch. If you are able to come before 5/14 to pull weeds and prepare the gardens for mulch, we would love to have your help.  Feel free to show up at your convenience.  If you will need gardening tools, contact Bill Stephan before you come so that he can have them ready for you.

Bethany PW for Flower Bingo - May 21st from 2pm to 4pm
Please bring a potted plant or flower, and go home with a different one! Then join us for a fun afternoon of fellowship! (Light refreshments will be provided)