Easter Message 2009:
Did Jesus Know How It Would Turn Out?
Transcript of Moderator’s Videotaped Message

Hi, my name is David Giuliano and I am the Moderator of The United Church of Canada. I want to take this opportunity to bring you Easter greetings and perhaps a word of encouragement.

Let me begin with the question, Did Jesus know how it would all turn out? I remember the first time I heard that question, it was a bit shocking to me. Reverend John Buttars asked it during a sermon on Palm Sunday at Harcourt United Church in Guelph, Ontario. He wondered aloud whether Jesus knew—beyond finding the donkey in the right place and that he needed to go into Jerusalem on it—how the week would unfold. Did he know about the cross? Was he confident about the resurrection when it came?

It was a bit of a shocking question to me, because like many of you I grew up with the idea that Jesus knew how everything would work out. And that we as his followers trusted in his knowledge and followed along. But John said for him, it was really important that he imagined that Jesus also had to respond to God’s call, risking and trusting that it would lead where he needed to go in God without all the answers. As we approach Easter this year and Palm Sunday in particular, I’ve been thinking about that and the ways in which we as individuals and as a church have been called to follow Jesus, not quite knowing where it will all lead.

I think about General Council 39 when we agreed to become an intercultural church. I think about the ways in which we are continuing to work together to build right relations and walk in a good way with First Nations people. I think about the ways in which we are trying to practise a more radical hospitality as a church community, welcoming people into our churches through the Emerging Spirit program and WonderCafe and the Living the Welcome workshops. And of course, many individual congregations are taking new risks as they develop relationships with our global partners and social ministries here in Canada.

We don’t know, always, how these things will work out. We move forward with Jesus, trusting in the journey and in our relationship with him, imagining that it will serve God in some good way and trusting that God will be with us. There are dangers and risks involved. But as the conclusion of our creed says, “God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.” We trust that God goes forward with us into these unknown places.

Well, friends, I wish for you a time of deepening relationship in the heart of God over this season of Lent and Palm Sunday, the week of passion, the moment of pain and loss at the cross, and the resurrection on Easter morning, so that you and I can rise up together with the sunshine on that morning crying out, “Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Hallelujah.”

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