Dear Family at Christ Community,

     We will conclude our journey in the book of Esther on Sunday in Esther 9:20-10:3. Just as Esther and Mordecai call for God’s delivered people to regularly celebrate this deliverance from death, we too are called week in and week out to festively celebrate our deliverance from death to eternal life in Jesus. Our celebration this Sunday includes Lois Mae Weather’s baptism and the Lord’s Table. Both helpfully remind us of who and Whose we are as we seek to grow further into the image of Christ through His means of grace. Through baptism, we celebrate God’s providential working through a variety of unseen and unknown circumstances to draw us to Himself in Jesus. Through the Lord’s Table, we rejoice in the finished work of Christ that delivered us from death to eternal life. What glorious reminders these are for us as God’s redeemed people! 

     In preparation for our celebration, consider this insightful observation that also applies to baptism by David G. Firth in The Message of Esther: God Present But Unseen:
“…Esther reminds us that our celebrations are simultaneously a thanksgiving for what God has done and an anticipation of what he will do. That is why Paul can affirm (in 1 Corinthians 11:26) that when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper we ‘proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.’”

This helps us thankfully reflect on what God has done by putting death to death in the death of Christ and granting newness of eternal life in the resurrection of Jesus. Please come prepared to gratefully celebrate God’s faithful deliverance of us as His people!

In Christ,
Cameron