Good evening parish,
The rains have settled, and we are seeing an actual sunset this evening–beautiful! I hope this greeting finds you well, with a spring in your step. This Sunday is Palm/Passion Sunday. We will begin with the liturgy of the palms and then reflect on the meaning of the cross in the ancient world, yes, but also in our contemporary world. Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar will be our featured preacher, though I will guide the rest of each service (8:30 am zoom; 10 am livestream on You Tube, UMCA Facebook Page and website, www.auburnmethodist.org, 88.3 FM to the church parking lot). I’ve attached the Worship Guide, Missions Opportunities Update and copy of last week’s message to this email.
For those who wish to drop by the church to pick them up, palms will be available at the church parking lot entrance both Saturday (beginning at 10:30 am) and Sunday.
Holy Week services include:
- Maundy Thursday Tenebrae Communion Service, 4/1, 7 pm zoom (Mitch Thomas, musician)
- Good Friday In Person Service at 12 noon, 4/2
- Good Friday Evening Service, 4/2, 7 pm, zoom (Mitch Thomas, musician)
- Easter SonRise In Person Service at the Keene’s (775 N. River Road, Auburn), 4/4, 6:15 am
- Easter Resurrection Services, 4/4, 8:30 am, zoom & 10 am livestream
The Men’s Fellowship Breakfast Group will be meeting on Holy Saturday, 7:30 am, zoom. The May meeting (5/1, 7:30 am) will be an ‘in person’ breakfast meeting, either in the Parking Lot or Fellowship Hall. Both Nurture Committee and Church Council will meet on 4/8/21.
I close with a quotation by George MacLeod which a parishioner sent to me:
“I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage heap; at a crossroad so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew, and in Latin and in Greek; at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where he died. And that is what he died about.”
Something to think about,
Pastor Steve Bascom, UMCA