Stina’s Message

What a wonderful service we had on Easter Sunday! Because of the Cherry Blossom Festival Parade, we only had a few very small children, but that was OK. One small fellow came up to the front of the church and inspected me for quite a while, which I thought was fabulous.

Easter is the center of our religious observances. The celebration of Jesus rising from the tomb is the culmination of Holy Week. Holy Week is the re-enactment of the events leading up to the entombment of Jesus, and Lent is the preparation for Holy Week and Easter.

However, while Easter Day is the pinnacle, the center point of Christianity, it is not the end point. Instead, it makes sense to think in terms of Lent as preparation for the death and resurrection of Jesus on Easter, and then we have the Easter season as preparation for the beginning of our story at Pentecost.

One of the rather cool things we do as Episcopalians is to signify what is going on by the colors that we see on the altar. So if it is a major festival (Christmas, Epiphany, and Easter), the colors will be white and/or gold. For preparation, the colors are blue/purple (Advent) or purple (Lent). For Pentecost, the color is bright red, for martyrs and Passion Sunday, it is dark red. For non-martyred saints, it is white. Got that? Don’t worry! What is really important to remember is that there is one more major color – green. Green is what we call “ordinary” time. Green is the time when we learn about what happened after Jesus was gone, that is, when the church started. So basically, when it’s green, it’s about us. When it is any other color, it’s about Jesus.

So if you come into the church for the next few weeks, you will see white/gold. Why? Because we are in the season of Easter! We cannot possible take in the enormity of what happened on Easter Sunday in one day. So we look at it from several angles, we hear the comments of witnesses about Jesus appearing to them, and we get a chance again to think about our response to this business of someone rising from the dead.

Then the colors will change, and we will celebrate Pentecost, which is the acknowledgement that Jesus has come and shown us the way, and now we are given the power to follow that way, to be his people in the world. May this Easter Season be a time of great joy and great reflection for you.

-Stina

BC NOTES

At our annual meeting in Jan, one of the two focus areas we agreed upon for this upcoming year was to look at energy savings for our building. We investigated 3 projects: solar panels, which does not make sense financially, however we are proceeding with window replacement on the 3rd floor, and with furnace replacement.

We agreed on assisting the Tohoku Diocese with a particular project as the beneficiary for our Music Festival in August. We will be putting together promo materials as soon as possible.

Stina and Marie will lead the church through a variety of discussions on disaster preparation after coffee hour, probably once a month.

Stina will resume tapping classes after church on other Sundays.

In the Sundays in July, we will join CUPC after our church service to have a joint adult education program. There will be a combined presentation, then breakout sessions in English and Japanese.

UPCOMING EVENTS

• May 10 – Deanery Meeting
• Mother’s Day – May 11 Please plan to come for the service and brunch afterwards. We will also take our annual picture on this day. Please email seikokaisf@gmail.com or contact Gordon to let us know that you will be coming if you have not signed the list at church. Thanks!
• May 12-13 Vicar’s Retreat
• May 15 Asian Commission
• May 20 JARF meeting at SKK
• May 26 Memorial Day Service at Colma
• June 14-18 Japanese Convocation in NYC
• June 26-29 Wild Goose Festival in NC
• August 24 Asian Music Festival at Grace Cathedral

SPECIAL THANKS
To the Altar Guild for all the extra work getting through Holy Week and Easter; to everyone that made the extra effort to come to the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services; to Marie Gishifu for agreeing to spearhead the disaster prep focus for us and for attending the diocesan disaster prep education day with Stina.