Dear Trinity Family,

It is harder to embrace our family these days in the face of the ongoing epidemic. We are practicing social distance but make no mistake we are still a family. You all continue to be in our prayers. Our hearts are full of your presence every day. Nothing can separate this family that is bound together by the love of Christ. And not only is the Trinity family bound together in this love, but the larger Christian family made up of all our siblings in Christ.

Jesus said, “Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” We have the powerful image of a few of the disciples, lost and confused after the crucifixion, going fishing. Suddenly the risen Lord is there among them. (John 21).

We need to reimagine this truth for today. Wherever we are gathered in prayer- on line and in our homes- Jesus is there among us. As we email and call each other in the love of Christ- there Jesus us among us. Even as we think about each other across distance and even time, there is the Lord with us.

Nothing can stop the risen Lord from being with us, especially in our greatest need. Mary alone in the garden is confronted by the risen Lord in John 20. The disciples in an upper room cannot hide from the presence of the Lord.

We approach Easter and the good news is even the isolation and finality of death cannot separate us from God’s love. And it cannot separate us from each other either. Paul’s words remind us this at the beginning of the book of Philippians:

I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

This Easter may be different than any we have experienced in our lives. Yet come what may we will be together at Easter in God’s love and the risen Christ will be among us.

Alleluia.
Pastors Cris and Dave