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Montreal UBF, Canada

April 13, 2013

Happy Easter! He has risen! He has indeed be raised!

This year, Montreal UBF organised a special Easter program that was held at our UBF church during Easter weekend. It made for an excellent opportunity for the ministry to invite our Bible students and new students.

Good Friday was celebrated in a two part program. In the afternoon, we had a study on John’s gospel chapters 18 and 19, in a messenger tag team format. Since the passage was a rather long one for a passage reading, attendants could follow the passage with a video presentation of both chapters from the movie The Gospel of John. Sylvia Foisy then gave the first message on chapter 18. As Jesus stood as the king of truth to take our guilt of sin up himself, we were challenged to stand on the side of truth. The price Jesus paid for his stance was death, as were learned from the next message by Lessedi Masisi, based on chapter 19. Jesus completed the entire work of salvation for us when he cried out on the cross, “It is finished”. We praised Jesus who paid it all with his blood and life. The messages were then followed by a symposium, consisting of five presentations based on John Piper’s book, “50 Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die”. That evening, in the second part of the Friday program, we meditated on Jesus’ suffering and death with a movie screening of “Brother Sun, Sister Moon” followed by a one-hour session of praise and worship. We praised our Lord Jesus who gave himself for us.

Easter Saturday was dedicated to Jesus’ resurrection as we had group studies on John 20 to learn about the true story of the resurrection. How true of a story was it? To convince us about the truth of Jesus’ resurrection, Marcel Rodney gave a presentation about the most convincing evidences entitled “Evidences of the Resurrection”, covering practically every possible angle in which we can question the resurrection. The final conclusion was: Jesus is alive! Especially our most reliable source, the Word of God was declared to us through John Giesbrecht’s evening message to plant resurrection faith in our hearts: “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). The day was topped off with a period of celebration through music and entertainment with a music video of a rap song created by HBF members and a skit by fellowships.

On the Lord’s day, Easter Sunday, worshippers came together to listen to a message by Philip Wong based on John 21, entitled “Do you Love Jesus?” The Risen Jesus revealed his love for Peter, and to restore Peter’s love for Jesus. Now, Peter had a clear and practical way to show his love for the Risen Lord: to feed Jesus’ lambs. And we also have this clear and practical way to show our love for Jesus: to feed campus students. We closed off our Easter program with communion and a lunch altogether.

The Easter program was blessed with wonderful and meaningful studies of Jesus’ death and resurrection for Quebec students, where many of them traditionally celebrate Easter but lack personal understanding and faith in the Risen Jesus. We thank God for those precious students who participated in the program, including Paul Lee from North York UBF, and the students and friends who attended the program.

The Risen Lord be with you!