wfn.org | ELCA Presiding Bishop's 2005 Easter Message

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ELCA NEWS SERVICE

March 4, 2005

ELCA Presiding Bishop's 2005 Easter Message

"Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.'"
(John 20:19)

The risen Christ appears to his disciples on Easter evening.
Behind locked doors, they are terrified.

Is there a more apt description of our contemporary context than
this?  We are fearful people: frightened by the possibility of a
terrorist attack, fearful of the stranger in our midst, worried
about the future.  The risen Christ stands before us today just
as he stood before his frightened disciples.  In the midst of our
fear, he extends an ordinary greeting that becomes a most
extraordinary gift: "Peace be with you."

Theologian Joseph Sittler describes the peace of God as
". . . rest, whose gift is to have no anxiety about anything,
fulfil[ling] itself in a peace of God as movement, which goes out
with holy concern about everything."  [Joseph Sittler, The Care
of the Earth, and Other University Sermons (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1964), p. 39.]

Yet the risen Christ offers not only the gift of peace, but also
himself.  He reveals the wounds of his crucifixion and then gives
the surprising command, "As the Father has sent me, so I send
you." (John 20:21)  Christ sends his followers, terrified as they
are, right back into the world that crucified their leader.  But
they are not sent into the world on their own.	"When he had said
this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy
Spirit.'" (John 20:22)

In the community of Christ's Body, the Church, we are sent to
proclaim Christ as risen for the healing of the world.	Alleluia!

The Rev. Mark S. Hanson
Presiding Bishop
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Easter 2005
-- -- --
     This year the ELCA and other Western Christian churches
celebrate Easter on Sunday, March 27.  Eastern or Orthodox
Christian churches celebrate the Great and Holy Pascha on Sunday,
May 1.
     The 2005 Easter message of Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson
is also available at http://www.elca.org/bishop/m_easter2005.html
on the ELCA Web site.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news