Dear Friends,

The celebration of the empty tomb is not only on Easter, not only for a season, but we are Easter people every day. We are people that have the eschatological hope of resurrection that is now and is to come. There are areas of our lives, especially those difficult places of our lives, that are being resurrected. We live in the present hope of resurrection daily because there is nothing our Lord of hosts cannot resurrect and bring forth life.

As we continue our new sermon series, Resurrections Stories, we hear from the heart of David in Psalm 84 who longs to return to Jerusalem to be in God’s presence. He longs to be in God’s house, in the courts of the Lord. His longing was so profound that he longed to be like the sparrows and swallows who were nesting at the altar. He says, “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!” May all who enter the doors of our churches find a dwelling place in God’s presence, a sanctuary. May all those who we encounter discover a sanctuary in each of us that glorifies God.

A great illustration of this, is the work that folks from our Mission Board have been doing to help our sister church, AMES United Methodist Church in Sandtown – to build their sanctuary in a new location. A couple of years ago AMES got a building. It was not the intention to make it into a sanctuary. AMES received a grant from Maryland to repair a church wall. Three weeks later the wall partially collapsed. The building is now condemned. This would have seemed to be a situation beyond resurrection, but we are Easter people who live in the reality that resurrection is possible every day. And so, the idea to make the warehouse into a sanctuary began just 4-5 weeks ago and thanks to the help of many folks including two dozen Glen Mar folks (who helped in the building) and 6-7 Glen Mar folks who helped over the recent weeks, they were able to pull it off. They had been worshiping with another congregation and are happy to have their new sanctuary space, a dwelling place of God. It was hard work with many hours of labor to make sure the folks at AMES could worship as a body in a new sanctuary. And “how lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of host” is there in Sandtown. See before and after pictures from their efforts below.

May we all be prepared to be a sanctuary as Easter people of Christ for the glorification of God’s kingdom who love and serve God and our neighbors.

In Resurrection Hope,

Pastor Melaina Trice