The Path to Easter is Through the Cross

During this Lenten season, we have been taking the Journey of the Stones, following Jesus to the cross. It has been a reflective, penitent journey. Each week at our Wednesday evening worship service, we were given a stone which represented the weight of our sins.

Sometimes, we can get weighed down by our sins, and be left feeling undeserving and unloved. Sometimes we can forget that Jesus bore the weight of all our sins and took them to the cross so that we could be set free from sin and death and set free to serve God and one another!

So on Wednesday evenings this Lent, at the end of each service, we were invited to lay down the weight of our sins by placing our stones at the foot of the cross. It was very moving to see so many people come forward every week and lay their stones at the foot of the ‘old rugged cross,’ trusting that Jesus would take up the weight of their sin.

The weight of sin and death! Gone!
Through Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection! Gone!
Through the sacraments of Holy Communion and Baptism. Gone!
Through confession and absolution! Gone!
Because of God’s great love made real for us in and through Jesus Christ and by what he did for us. Gone!
By grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. Gone!

I invite you to complete the journey with us as we walk the stony path, following Jesus to the cross through Holy Week; Passion/Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Vigil of Easter. We will follow Jesus into Jerusalem, be with him in the upper room as he washes the disciples’ feet, witness his betrayal and arrest in the garden of Gethsemane, lament as he carries his cross to Golgotha, is crucified, dies, and is buried, and we will keep watch at his tomb, waiting for what he foretold—waiting for him to rise again on the third day.

I invite you to journey with us as we follow Jesus to the cross—and beyond! Because the path to salvation, the path to being made right with God, the path to victory over sin and death—is through the cross.

There are many paths that go around the cross. But none of those paths leads to salvation, because they are not the path Jesus walked. His path led to the cross. And he called us to follow him. And so we do. All the way to the cross—through the cross—and then beyond!

There is only one path to the glory of Easter—the path that leads through the cross.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow me.” Mark 8:34b

On the journey with you,
Pastor Roy+
Trusting God. Following Jesus <><