Walter Brueggemann, UCC theologian and scholar, reminded me the other day that we all struggle with systems of death.  There is personal death and public death.  There is hidden death and overt death.  There is economic death, intimate death and familial death.

Every now and then we get a break-through from these systems of death, for instance, when a doctor says we are in remission.  At that time during remission, we can reassess our living of life; daring to dance, to give, to care, to forgive.

That is my task this coming Easter Sunday and the seven-Sundays of Easter leading to Pentecost Sunday. I am to preach the gospel, telling people that death is not the last word.  We are in a "remission" of sorts, given a life after death or life after many deaths, which we have experienced.

As I read the Scriptures, there are both hints and slight glimpses of resurrection, but total knowledge of the resurrection remains beyond us.  Yet, in the hints and glimpses of the resurrection, we find that God indeed has worked in a new way.  It is the dawning of a new day and a new world.  Happy Easter my sisters and brothers in Christ!

Your partner in ministry,

Bill

The Rev. Dr. William R. Nirote