April, 2004 Newsletter

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Easter At SCVJCC

For the last several years, our Easter week has been marked by the Easter Festival, Good Friday Service and of course our Easter Sunday Services. If you want to talk about one fun and wild time, well, then you are talking about our Easter Festival which was held the day before Palm Sunday. We had over 600 people in attendance for games, prizes, egg hunts, food, balloons and the opportunity to hear the true message of Easter. And it was absolutely wonderful that the majority of folks who came to the Easter Festival were visitors from the community. We are so thankful for all the people who served the children of our church and community during this event.

Then there was the somber moment of Good Friday. Through singing, through choir presentations and through the sharing of three laypeople on three of the seven sayings of Jesus on the Cross, we were able to spend some time reflecting on the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me share with you an excerpt of what one of the speakers of the evening had to say:

Jesus’ thirst was only human. It was God’s plan to send a Savior to us in the body of a man; one that would eat, sleep, cry, and even thirst. As a teenager, I’ve not seen as many years as most. But I know that when I can relate to God because he was once a man and has experienced my world, I have something special. He is 100% man and 100% God. It is something we’ll never fully understand.

Jesus’ cry for a drink also fulfilled prophecy. In Psalm 69:21, David said, “They also gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” God always holds true to his word. He knew from the beginning of his Son’s humanly thirst on the cross and even predicts it several times days before his death. This one sentence that Christ spoke has utmost significance because it proves that he was planning to endure hours of suffering as a human and remain on the cross until the end.

According to the book of John, just after Jesus took the vinegar from the sponge, he gave up his spirit. This was one of the last things he did before he died. I’m so thankful that we have a God who loves us unconditionally. I’m so grateful that I’ve had the chance to speak about these two special words of Jesus (“I Thirst”) because they were given to us as words of hope. God understands our pain be cause he experienced suffering too. Jesus died for us as both a Savior and a friend…. (Sarah A. is a high school freshman.)

And then Jesus rose again! On Easter Sunday, we rejoiced in the fact that Jesus was resurrected and that He has conquered death, sin and the devil. Yes, the Easter week was a roller coaster ride for our church. Though it was not like the roller coaster ride that Jesus’ disciples went through, it was nice to be able to spend the Easter week as a church family reminiscing about our Lord’s final days before his death and resurrection. And we are so thankful that the laypeople both young and old together are the ones who contributed mightily to making this Easter season such a wonderfully reflective one.

— Pastor Lester Yamashita

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