Sunday, April 23, 2017, Easter 2 (full size gallery)
This week spotlighted two different types of Outreach. On Wednesday we were host to 157 people who were able to shop for food at the Village Harvest. It was the single largest monthly shop since we began the ministry in late 2014.
We continue to support worldly missions. We received a letter from Doctors without Borders thanking us for a $1,500 donation which was made by a parishioner in honor of St. Peter’s.
Then on Sat., we opened our doors to 40 for the Magical Strings concert. This was outreach in celebration of our larger community and to 5 years of concerts at St. Peter’s. Thanks to Cookie for making alternate arrangments for the reception.
We welcomed today Bill Locke from Chicago. Bill successfully petitioned the Vestry to eventually be buried at St. Peter’s along with his wife Jane. He has two connections to this area, one ownership of Waverly in King George. Bill is an engineer of commercial buildings in Chicago.
We gave thanks for Barbara Segar’s birthday and Zeke and anniversaries from Catherine and Ben (#40) and Jim and BJ Anderson.
During Sunday School, "God’s Kids" studied the resurrection. The real lesson of new life came half way through with Andrew Huffman’s arrival with 20,000 bees! Andrew is a professional bee keeper. The bees new hive was placed in the back of the property.
Modern honeybee colonies are designed to mimic the dimensions and environment of a bees nest built naturally by wild honeybees, with the added ability to remove individual frames of honeycomb for inspection and manipulation. The dimensions of the removable frames are similar in dimension to honeycomb built in the wild.
Our bees will grow this year and hopefully produce honey and wax in 2018. Meanwhile they have to be fed and already completed combs added to their hive. This was done after the service along with "smoking" the hive to keep the bees calm in their new surrounding. During the announcements, Andrew answered questions from the congregation about the bees. He emphasized these were very gentle bees.
Today’s readings call us to faith in the risen Christ. In Acts, Peter attests to the resurrection of Jesus Christ as an act of God, an act that forms the basis for Christian community. 1 Peter envisions faith in and love for Christ as a sign of our salvation. In the gospel, Jesus does not leave Thomas behind, but rewards his persistence with faith.
In the Easter season, following an ancient tradition, a reading from the Acts of the Apostles is used as the first reading.The book of the Acts recounts the early growth of the Church. One of the major features of Acts is Luke’s use of speeches by the principal figures, providing reflection on and analysis of events. Today’s reading is taken from the first of these discourses, in which Peter addresses the crowd on the Day of Pentecost.
Throughout the Easter season, the second reading is taken from 1 Peter, written to the Christians of Asia Minor who were facing persecution for their faith. The bulk of 1 Peter is not like a letter in form or style, but more like a sermon given at a baptism. Some have even suggested that it is the text for the Easter baptismal liturgy.
Today’s reading is a prayer of thanksgiving for God’s opening to believers a rebirth and new life through the resurrection of Jesus. This life is lived in the hope of an inheritance kept in heaven (v. 4). The Christian is guarded now even in trial, sustained by the faith of those who have not seen.
The sermon took the idea of "Living Hope" from the Epistle. "Peter says in his letter to the Christians in Asia Minor that through God’s resurrection of Jesus from the dead, God has given us new birth into a living hope, even when we are suffering for our faith." Later in the sermon finds this definition "The life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and God’s peace, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, all work together to give us living hope in God, a hope in God’s eternal presence with us, that will at last be complete at the end of time. "
In the Gospel, the first appearance of the risen Lord to the disciples stresses Jesus’ fulfillment of the promises that he made in the long farewell address at the Last Supper in chapters 14-17.
Thomas will not accept the Easter proclamation on the word of others but wishes to experience the risen Christ directly. Yet he can still penetrate the meaning behind the marvel and make a full affirmation of Christian faith. He consummates the sequence of titles given to Jesus by giving him the ultimate title, God.