Stepping into Freedom: Trusting that We Matter

It was in the middle of Holy Week that Dave Mareske, a member of our community who is the Executive Director at Hollis Renewal Center, one of our partners in ministry, sent out an Easter message to the community of people and organizations who support and use Hollis as a resource. In it Dave reflected upon the hospitality that is offered to us by Jesus through the resurrection and he wrote this line that caught hold of me and became the inspiration for our new worship series, we started this past Sunday.

Dave wrote, “Easter hospitality begins with this truth: Christ welcomed us out of the tombs we didn’t know we were living in. The risen life is an open door, a warm light, a place where weary people can breathe again.”

In this season of Easter which stretches over seven weeks, we will open our eyes to the tombs we don’t even realize we are living in, and we will begin to think about how we move forward from them toward the light. Each week, we will consider how we live as Easter People in our world today, how we step into the freedom Christ sacrificed everything for, so that we might enjoy it.

In our first week, this past Sunday, we looked at how achievement culture can be one of those tombs, for kids and adults alike, as we begin to believe that our worth and value are tied to our achievements and success instead of just being inherent to who we are. As we studied Paul's words to the church in Galatia in 5:1-10, 13-14 we were reminded that the freedom we have received in Christ is a gift not to squander and that freedom grows when we love one another as ourselves.