Brent Ness

While Easter Sunday is a once a year event, the Easter season lasts 50 days. Over the course of these 50 days we’ll be thinking as a community about how to be Easter people in a hurting world.

Sunday, we mark the time when Jesus makes his final entrance into Jerusalem.  We will wave palms, shout our hosannas, pray, and give praise to the One who comes in the name of the Lord.

People have been puzzling out the meaning of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus since the moment it happened.

Yikes! If I got bitten by a snake, I’m not sure I’d go to Moses for a cure. But I have felt strangely drawn to this scripture lately.

The congregation that became St. Paul & St. Andrew officially began on March 5, 1835!

So, at worship this Sunday we will celebrate turning 189 years old by singing, praising, praying and dedicating the restored stained-glass window, ‘Paul Before Agrippa’.

At first glance, this invitation of Jesus seems anything but inviting. Deny myself? How do I do that? Take up my cross?

I remember when I was a teenager, watching one of my favorite TV programs, Designing Women. In one particular episode, the inimitable character, Julia Sugarbaker, sang this hymn at her friend, Charlene’s, church.