An Easter greeting from President Robert Bugbee

The Resurrection of Our Lord
April 24, 2011

Dear people of God:

I want you all to know how grateful I am to be a member of Synod’s family. The joy being preached and sung in your church today, wherever you are, brings me gladness, too.

The holy Christian Church is different from every other structure, club or society on the face of the earth. Those groups came to be because purposeful people decided to create something. People maintain them, too, many times by trying to keep the visions of their founders alive and fresh. Sometimes they succeed, and the organizations flourish. Other times they run out of steam, and the whole thing collapses.

Jesus Christ said, “I will build My church.” While individual congregations in certain locations may fade away, His holy family in the world will survive to the end of time. You can believe this, because it’s not dependent upon our ingenuity or our power. We don’t really build it; He does.

He can do this because He is the Risen One. After He laid down His life for your sins and mine; after He suffered indescribable pain in His body and horrific torment in mind and heart; after He carried the death you and I deserved, He came alive again. His triumphant resurrection shows Him for what He is, God’s Son and the Saviour of the world. His resurrection shows that the Father accepted what He did for you when He suffered, bled and died. His resurrection certifies that we don’t have to keep alive the memory of some dead hero. To the contrary, the Risen One is busy and powerful, hearing your prayers, guiding the lives of His people, reviving you in your weakness and filling you with His Spirit so that you can make His love seem real in the lives of others. People all around you need this so badly.

To every pastor, deacon, and to the members of our local churches across the Synod, I send out this prayerful wish for a glad Easter festival in Christ Jesus the Lord. May you always draw your life from Him Who was raised from the dead for all of us. And since we are like some of those early Easter people, slow to believe on many occasions, may the Risen One carry you through your doubts, your fears and your sorrows today. May He help you to experience the truth of His pledge: “I am with you … to the end of the age.”

Christ is risen, Alleluia! He is risen indeed, Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Robert Bugbee, President
Lutheran Church–Canada

President Bugbee’s sermon “Welcome to a Holy Week Life“

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