Throughout human history almost everyone has entertained the belief they will live on after death.  Despite the temptation to reduce Jesus’ Resurrection to a confirmation of what most of us already believe, the Church’s Resurrection proclamation is really a continuation of Jesus’ life & mission calling us to live up to our full human potential to love God, self, & others here & now in this world.   

On Easter Sunday, Rev. David Diller preached two sermons.  At sunrise worship, his message was “Jesus Wins” from Mark 16:1-8.  He answered the question of why Mark’s Gospel ends with an empty tomb & the women fleeing afraid & in silence by transforming it into this existential question: as one who has read through the entire Gospel of Mark & been a faithful disciple following Jesus through his trials & death to his resurrection, since nobody else is here to tell the story of Jesus’ whole life, am I now going to speak & live courageously with Jesus’ love or will I continue living in fear & silence?  

In his 10:30 message, “Faith & Love” based on 1 John 3:18-24, Rev. Diller said the message of Easter cashes out in two ways: believing in the name of God’s Son Jesus Christ & loving one another. To believe in Jesus’ name is nothing other than to experience Jesus personally as the Living Lord of our life.  To love one another means to relate to all others in healing, serving, & encouraging ways just as Jesus did.  Easter is not about our living on beyond death, but about our coming fully alive to Jesus’ love as the meaning of life while we are alive!