BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS— Around 150 worshipers gathered at Keystone Beach Park at daybreak on Sunday, April 17 to observe Easter.
During the service Keith Hatch, the discipleship pastor at Community Church talked to the crowd about the significance and lessons learned from the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Hatch, also the founder of Center Cross Ministries, described to the crowd three scenes from the Gospel of John that depicted the events following the resurrection.
He said the gospel offers hope in times of despair.
“You turn on the television and you see despair, you see loss, you see anguish, you see fear,” he said. “And it’s not just on the television. It’s in our everyday walk.”
Hatch said the resurrection is an essential component of the Christian message.
“Without an empty tomb the scriptures would not be fulfilled,” he said. “Jesus’s words would have gone out just as hot air when he said the temple would be restored in three days. “It’s also key to our doctrine of the Christian faith. It proves that Jesus is the Son of God.”
Assumptions cloud judgement
Hatch drew lessons from Mary Magdalene’s visit to the empty tomb before dawn on Sunday.
He said the follower of Jesus made assumptions throughout the morning that clouded her perceptions and led to inaccurate conclusions about the events of the day.
He added that when Mary first saw the empty tomb, she assumed someone had stolen Jesus’s body, and then she relayed that inaccurate information to the other disciples.
“How often do we as Christians make assumptions because we’re not close enough to God to understand who God is and, in those assumptions, we go back and tell others things that mislead them,” he said.
Hatch said Mary then did not recognize Jesus when He stood before her, instead assuming He was a gardener.
“She was looking right at Him and she didn’t recognize it,” Hatch said. “How many of us facing our false assumptions are looking right at Jesus? Jesus is speaking to us, telling us to get out of our church building to go out and find the lost
and bring them to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but we’re not hearing him because we’re not recognizing him.”
From fear to courage
Hatch then described a second scene in the 20th chapter of John in which the disciples were hiding from Jewish authorities when Jesus appeared to them.
He said that when their leader appeared in the room, the fear that paralyzed them vanished.
He added that if present-day believers recognize the presence of Jesus, their fears also will disappear.
“If we believe in Jesus,” he said, “the one that rose and emptied the tomb as the living God, our fear is turned to courage.”
From doubting to belief
The last scene hatch discussed occurred one week after the resurrection when Christ reappeared to the apostles and told a doubting Thomas to place his hands in Jesus’s wounds.
Hatch added that Jesus also makes himself accessible to today’s believers who have doubts.
“He knew Thomas’s unbelief and he knows your doubting,” Hatch said. “He knows your unbelief and he’s here right now speaking to you, just as he did Thomas.”
Thousands raised for food pantry
Kiwanis member Tina Bullock said attendees of the sunrise service donated $3,250 to Lake Area Ministries during the event. The church cooperative operates the Lake Region’s largest food pantry on Commercial Circle.
LAM Director Tanya Dennis said the organization assisted 1,970 families in the first quarter.
“One hundred, one of those families have never been to LAM in the last two years, so they’re new to the LAM family,” she said.
Dennis added that it costs the ministry $19 to feed a family of four for a week and that the Easter sunrise service has contributed to the organization for the past 32 years.
