Sunday Recap: Easter 2026

This episode is a recap of this past week's Sunday morning gathering where we discuss the sermon text, our singing, and the gathering as a whole. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to this week's episode of Field's Notes, where we take a deeper dive into sermon text, discuss matters of life and faith, and enjoy conversations around the table with fellow friends from the Fields. Well, welcome back to Fields Notes, your favorite podcast to listen to on your way to school or work, mowing the lawn, folding laundry, leisure activities with your AirPod, headphone things in. Welcome back to Fields Notes. I'm Joe, and I'm here with my friend, my pastor.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Brayden. Here I am. Thanks, Joe. Thanks for having me. It's a little weird that it's just you and me today. It is a little weird.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

We're Jeffless today.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

But uh we're thankful to report record this podcast. We'll do our best to make it through. It will probably be the shortest podcast because Jeff is a talker. We love Jeff, we love you. But we I think we'll we'll be a little shorter. Probably true. But hey, well, we're recording this podcast because we want to uh remind us uh we we're the week right after Easter here. So we want to reflect and remind us of um our church's gatherings on that Easter weekend. So Good Friday and Easter, so that as we do continue on in our weeks, that we're uh recalling those truths, that we're um yeah, in some ways squeezing out as much as we can from those gatherings um for us. So hopefully it's an encouragement to you listening and uh even an encouragement to us as we think about them. Some so uh maybe just like a general uh thought first, Braden, for us. Uh uh how do our how maybe should we think in some ways the same or maybe in some ways differently about Easter uh as a church um for us as we prepare for it, things that we think about in that Easter season?

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Yeah, I think I do think obviously Easter, maybe a little bit like Christmas in some ways, is a unique season, especially in the church calendar, thinking about Jesus, who he is and what he's done. And we obviously mark these particular events of especially his death and resurrection with Easter, um his birth with Christmas. Um, but I think probably the thing that I would think about that maybe makes a difference how how I I think about Easter or a Christmas is this these are times where the world, people who are not Christians, are thinking about church or thinking about Jesus, or at least like, oh, I should do that. And so I think in some ways that that does shape a little bit of maybe the opportunity that we have uh during these times of the year to uh engage and to think about what our service is gonna be oriented about and around, always always around Christ in the way that we orient and think about our service and the gospel, but maybe especially making certain things that are accessible to people who would be unbelievers listening, who would be people who would be new to church or not typically come to church. We want to think about that on an Easter Sunday, especially. And then I think as Christians, obviously we're thinking about uh just the the death and resurrection of Jesus that we're gonna especially spend time considering that in the sermon, in our songs, highlighting that. Not that we uh we always preach the gospel every Sunday, but maybe in a uniquely focused way uh might be the way I think about it.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yeah, super helpful. Yeah, I think especially being so like there might even be a little bit of a different feel that on like a uh Christmas Eve and a Easter Sunday that we might even just be more aware that there might be more people who are just uh like not typically in our church who might come because their neighbors invited them, because they are oh, Easter's when we should go to church. And so we are more aware of that and we're gonna be just so clear about uh how people can be forgiven of their sins in Christ on Easter um especially. So it's such an encouragement. I I love Easter Sunday for us, it's fun. Yeah. Um for a for a variety of reasons. Um, but I do think we most we most essentially remember that Christ is risk, that that that our sin has been paid for, and that our our savior is not dead but is alive, and that there's real resurrection for us as well. Um it's just a joyous Sunday, and um I think there's a special energy amongst our church on Easter Sunday that we're by there is a oh like there there just is a um yeah, energy that's really special on that Sunday. We do some other things as a church too, not that we have to do them for Easter. We have that breakfast before, which is uh fun way to get people there. We have a photo booth, people can take pictures on Easter, people dress up a little bit more. Me uh the if you were there, me and Jeff and Braden without calling each other or texting more almost exactly the exact same thing on Easter Sunday. It was on the script, but you know, this yes, this script for us here. Um but it's just a sweet Sunday in that. So we're gonna take a little bit of time. Um, hopefully, for you guys to even just remember yourselves if you're there on Easter and Good Friday, or maybe if you didn't uh we weren't didn't get a chance to gather with us on those, might be an encouragement um for you to hear about. But just share some thoughts from that Good Friday gathering and from our Easter Sunday gathering. So Brandon, not if we're gonna kick us off anything especially that stood out to you on Good Friday, um, thoughts or things, or if you want to even just comment some on Good Friday as a whole as well.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Yeah, I always think uh Good Friday is a is an opportunity to just remember, I think the yeah, especially the death of Christ and probably just all that he went through. Maybe it it, you know, certainly I think about the fact that Jesus died for me many days in the year every day. Uh but the the particular, like maybe agony or the suffering or some of those things, the hardship and the you know, the the difficulty of the cross that we probably especially maybe emphasize on Good Friday is is helpful for me to consider all that my savior went through for me. And so I think he did a good job leading us in it. I think our service was helpful in thinking through the songs we sang and the and uh even the scripture reading of just you know thinking of what he exchanged or the kind of prayer that we had, uh the kind of exchange um of Christ for us. And so um, yeah, I just thought those things were really great and helpful to to consider that. But Joe, how did how did it uh how was it for you preaching uh Good Friday? How was that? How did you what things were were helpful and even your own heart meditating on that and uh in the weeks, week, week leading up to it?

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Yeah, um I so I'm so thankful to get to preach Good Friday. I've uh um it there is like a just a like a a specialness to Good Friday that is um to really reflect on the cross in that time. So I'm so thankful to get to preach. Um maybe even something that I'm like uh have have grown in my maybe even thoughts or like have considered more in the last couple years is how we ought to maybe even feel on Good Friday. It's a weird uh there's a sense that it's a is it a day of mourning? Is is it a day of celebration? It how how are we to feel on Good Friday? And um I don't know if I have the the perfect words, but I would say more or less it's a sobering day that we um not a day of despair for us. We know Easter's coming, but a a day where we really um a humbling day where we really see the cost of our sin. And so I think partly um from our passage, but like what I um tried to spend some time for us to think about is well how costly our sin really is, that that what the cross shows us in that. So the humbling nature of that. But we also do then see that because of Good Friday, we actually see that we do see the cost of our sin, but we see that our sin is paid for as well, too. So there is, I do think there is an encouragement to Good Friday as well. But it's a humble, humbling encouragement, though, that we see um how needy we are, but we also see our Savior who's paid for for our sin. Um in that so I'm so thankful we get to preach. I think it is a um, I mean, the when we continue to dwell on, think about, consider the cross, so much it it shows our it it humbles us and and brings all the more glory to God that we see what He has done for us. So I'm so thankful we get to preach on it.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Yeah, one of the things I loved that you talked about, even in just talking about it, the the kind of the week leading up to was just the way you drew out just like how Christ is like this worthy, beautiful, perfect one who gives himself for us who are unworthy, and and just the the the kind of gap or difference, you know, the the great cost that you were talking about. But the fact that the great cost is really in the sense of how perfect and and and matchless Christ is, that he would give himself for someone like me, someone like us. And we do I can often I can think about that in other ways. You know, we were even talked about that a little bit even leading up to it, but of just uh, you know, I would not want to give myself for somebody who I deem as far less worthy, someone who's using their life in wasteful ways and and just you know not doesn't have much value or significance or you know, not even pursuing anything in the world. Like I don't want to give myself to serve them or maybe even die for them. Uh but Christ would do that for us as sinners and the great cost that he would go through. I just love the way that you uh drew that out and and helped us kind of what you said, not to take the cross lightly because we see how great a cost it was. So you did a great job uh thinking through that and helping us uh consider that even with some dental floss of that illustration.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

That was great. Praise the Lord. Thanks, Braden. Brayden, uh for everyone listening, Braden helped me in all all things of that sermon throughout throughout the week. So thank you, Braden, for that. Um well Friday, and then um we had our Easter Sunday service as well. We had a breakfast before it was um it was a special, it was a special gathering. It was um, I think uh yeah, I well I I'm gonna curious to hear what you think. Anything that special that stood out uh maybe besides the sermon from Easter Sunday morning. I have some thoughts to you, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

I will say, even though like we just talked about how in some ways there's a part of like we we don't think about Easter super different than other Sundays, like Jesus is always risen and he's always raising reigning on the throne every single Sunday that we gather. Um we always always gather to worship him, we always gather to preach the gospel. Those are definitely true. I do remember even just this like this Sunday morning, I was you know woke up early in the morning and I heard the birds chirping. I was thinking about the women at the tomb, like just going to the tomb and it being empty. And it gave me just tons of joy to wake up that particular morning, knowing that we're gonna gather I was gonna gather with God's people that morning and think about the resurrection and get to think about yeah, just the fact that he's not here, but he's risen. And what a what a sweet thing uh that that is. So um loved, yeah, loved just the time together as a church family. I thought the breakfast was sweet. I haven't obviously this is my first time being able to be here for Easter Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Is it your first Easter? It feels like you've been here forever, Braden. I can't wow well thanks. I guess that makes sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Yeah, but first first Easter at the field. So breakfast was fun, sweet to just be able to be together, and uh and then yeah, I mean, I loved even just starting out with um uh maybe the song of like the Easter medley of just singing some old songs, some old, you know, uh Easter hymns a little bit was was fun, a fun way to just start our service. Um after Joe did a good job of saying he is risen, and and everyone responded with he is risen indeed. And I this would be a fun poll for people.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

If I don't know how much people if you grew up in church, if you know the the on Easter, you you say he is risen, and then the people say it back to you, he is risen indeed. That's right when you like when you greet anyone on Easter Sunday. I didn't know that uh two years ago, or maybe it was last year, I forget what year it was, but right before this is uh so maybe either 2025 or 2024, before the service, I was service weeding on Easter, and Jeff's like, hey, do the he is risen thing. And I'm like, What? It's like yeah, the he is risen thing, like say that, and then people respond. I'm like, will they? I don't know. But they ever everyone to explain it.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Like, hey, should I say like don't explain it, do not explain it. That is not people don't get it, they don't get it. That's out. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Hey, he is risen indeed, and that's what matters. And you know, if you know the lingo things, but anyways, yeah, thankful. I was thankful to get to. Um, but yeah, the first song, uh uh uh uh Christ is risen, hallelujah. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Um Christ the Lord has risen today. That is that what it is, Victory in Jesus and Amazing Grace. Those are our three songs I think that we sang kind of in a medley that Grace probably did a great job putting together was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

So it was very sweet.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

What about you, Jim?

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Well, on a note on that, we got to Callie's grandma's house after uh after Easter went, did Easter with them, and she was like, Well, the what's the what's the first song called? Christ Is Risen? Christ the Lord has risen today. Christ the Lord has risen today. We came there, she's like, Man, I really love that. Christ the Lord has risen today. She wasn't out of church, and then Kyle's like, I think we sang that at our church this morning. So I was it was a fun, fun note in that. Um, man, I love a lot of aspects of this on it. I mean, I think the part that stood up most. I love when we do baptisms on Easter. That is yeah, uh, yeah, we see we do see this this reality of death to life that we see in baptism that just pictures Easter so well. So so encouraged about that. Uh so Jin and Jenny, uh Jin Thrall and Jenny Brady got baptized. So so encouraging. Uh uh, I think people who are there would know. Uh Jenny Brady was so excited to be baptized. So Jeff goes through the questions and she's like, Yes, I I believe it was it was so encouraging, Jenny, to see you be baptized. And um, I do think often, you know, we uh when we see people in our church are baptized, we can't uh I don't know about everyone else, but I think about my own baptism too. I'm just encouraged by what the Lord's done in me. And oh my goodness, the Lord's doing this in other people too, and he's making a people through that. Love it. It was so encouraging.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Well, let's take a little bit of time to talk some about uh Jeff's sermon on uh on Easter Sunday. Um we had this, I don't know, week and a half-ish series in 2 Corinthians 5 from Palm Sunday, Good Friday, uh, and then Easter Sunday. So Jeff preached on 2 Corinthians 5, 16 through 21, especially the idea that those who are in Christ are new creations. Braden, anything that stood out to you that you think would be helpful for people to think about a little bit more from that sermon, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Yeah, I do think the way that he started was just really helpful. Um, I think in a number of for a number of reasons, just thinking about self-help versus Christianity and that those two can be conflated often. Um, that that that we can think, well, Christianity is kind of just a version of of the way to help yourself feel better about your life. I think that would be the way many people who would be pretty dismissive of Christianity would think about it. I think that might be the way a number of people who would have just some kind of semblance of religion, even that they're okay with like Christianity. They're like, oh yeah, go on Christmas and Easter. Like they, I think certainly some of those thoughts that that Jeff was expressing um helpfully would I would say I would guess that would be many people, even maybe who are newer, uh, would think those things, would think, yeah, Christianity is just kind of a different flavor of help yourself and you're gonna do it kind of in this way or this version. And I think the way that he just helped us throughout the sermon, but especially in the beginning, see that's not just about you know making us better, um, but we need to be made new. And then that's a whole different thing. Uh, that's completely not done by us. Um, I think it was just a helpful way to begin and even to draw us into why we should consider Christianity, why we should consider the claims of Jesus as opposed to just any other claims.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Yeah, I think that whole that that was basically his main idea, which I have written down somewhere, but is not in front of me, so I won't try to restate it off the top of my head. But that Christians aren't made those who are who have somehow become better. They they need to be they're made new in that. Uh it reminds me of I don't know if people listening have that, if you know those little nine marks books I'm talking about, they all have the same little shape, they all have a fun little color and those sorts of things. The conversion book, it's the yellow one by Michael Lawrence. If you have that book and it's collecting dust on a bookshelf somewhere and you've not read it, you need to pick that book up. And I'm not even a reader, and I'm saying that that the first chap, I think it's the first chapter. Again, I'm going off the top of my head here. It is the it's called New Not Nice. That we kind of sometimes think about Christian, like I like what Jeff was talking about in this whole that well, I've become nicer that I'm I'm a Christian. And it's not the case. We aren't a better version of our old self. We are a new self, that we've been made new. We have new, it's not we have that our desires got a little bit better. We have new desires, we have a new heart. Um, I thought was um so helpful. And it's helpful for us to think about too, because even uh those of us who've been walking with the Lord for a while, we can kind we can kind of forget that. That we that we can even um think that our Christian life is about us sometimes even becoming better so that then God would accept us because we've become better. No, that's not the Christian life. We're actually declared righteous in front of God because of what Christ has done for us, not because we've gotten better. I do think Jeff's um all of Jeff's ideas um funneled through that, which I thought was super helpful. Something uh in particular that stood out to me, I had not considered before. I think this is a helpful thing of even uh recognizing the truth of Christianity, recognizing um the the truth of the sinfulness that we really do have in our hearts. With Jeff made this point about, uh and I'm gonna not gonna quote him perfectly, but more or less, if we weren't relatively pretty good, like if um we were good and just sometimes we did bad things, sometimes we made mistakes, those sorts of things, then uh if we kind of continue to peel back the layers of our heart, the deeper we go into ourselves, we would find that the deeper we go in, probably the better that we would be. But in reality, that's not the case. That actually most of the time our actions are our in our words are actually the best thing that people see in us. That we are on on the outside, probably the best word. But as we peel back the deeper we go into ourselves, it actually doesn't get better, it gets worse most of the time. That we actually see that there's this sinfulness, this selfishness, this this wickedness, even in our core, um, that we have. I had not considered that in the way that he had um talked about that. I think I was in his first point. Um, I thought that was especially helpful and especially true. And I do think when we we recognize that more and more in our lives, and we recognize then well, the need we have to be new. And he talked about uh early on in his um sermon talked about just reality that the Christian life isn't so much like we take some medicine to make us better. We actually need a transplant, we need a new heart so helpful. Other thoughts you have, Braden?

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Or yeah, I mean I think that that that even just in in applying that is just such an encouraging truth about Christianity. What that does tell us is that it it gives us kind of freedom to be able to be real about our sin and uh and about our weaknesses, about our failures, about the ways we don't get it right, are about not just on the outward, but all the way in. Um that we are like in those things, we can confess our sin, that we actually can do that because of Christ, like that, that we don't have to hide those things as if they're not really true about us, but that when we do sin, we have one who has forgiven that sin. And so it's okay to come out and not defend ourselves and say, no, no, no, I'm actually a pretty good person, really, deep down. We can actually expose those things, and then that is what the Bible says actually is the way to to healing, the way to freedom. And and so, yeah, even thinking about that, the way that he laid that out, that actually does show us and help us even think about that we actually can confess our sin, that we actually can bring that to God, that he will forgive us, uh, that we can uh not have to hide those things or not pretend that things are actually good, or not pretend that we can fix ourselves and get better, that we can actually uh bring them into the light, uh confess our sin. And he'll he's faithful and just to forgive us.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

And it uh even you just uh saying that, uh I Jeff talked about some, but there is a reality that we so the new creation has come already in Christ. And that's true of Christians, that we are already new, and yet there's still this reality you're not fully there yet. We do still long and wait. So that's why there is still this tension. We live in this tension time where we are Christians are new. So I think Jeff was even talking about a little bit, he's looking who I mean. I don't even know if Jeff works hard in his sermons or not, because he's looking out the window most of the time. I kid uh writing a sermon is right and anytime I get to write any sort of sermon, I'm just so humbled. It's so, anyways, but Jeff is talking about these um the buds on the tree, and that, well, there is they're just starting to form there, but they're new. There's new life. They didn't used to be there, and they're yet they're so small. But someday there will be a full flower there. And that I think that's partly what he was talking about. But in uh for the for for Christians, maybe even be encouraged by this, we do live in in this overlap of the ages. That we are there is a newness that Christians have, and yet this the old man is is still present there, and we are battling in that. That's why we do still have sin. Um, but that doesn't mean though, what Jeff's point was, that doesn't mean that we aren't new. Because even uh I think as he started his last point, I thought this was encouraging to me to hear our pastor say this that he was like, sometimes I look at my own life and I'm like, Am I really new? That we do still see our sin. We uh he would argue we become even more aware of our sin the uh as we even continue on in our Christian life, it even feels like we're more sinful than we used to be, even though that almost certainly isn't the case. Um and so uh there's a sense that we do need to recognize that tension is still there, and I do think that even grows us for the longing when that day does come that we actually will in full be not able to sin when Christ returns. And so there is a um a longing for that, even uh as we recognize the the real newness that we do have here now in this life.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Yeah, I love that uh point that he was making at the end. Just that he said new life um is an easy life or good life. You know, it doesn't necessarily mean it's easy life, doesn't necessarily mean it's a good life. It's it might be full of suffering, it might be full of sin, but it really Is new that there can really be that sense and we can equate those other things with new life. But then that yeah, the way he ended the way I was just thinking about it at the end of the service was like, you know, if if it's true that we are really in some ways a these, you know, beginning of this new creation that God is doing not just in us, but but gonna make all things new one day that we're getting a like kind of sight of what is to come. The the best sight of that is actually in the church. Like it's it's in these new creations that God is making. And so I was just maybe even thankful for our church thinking about one baptism that we went into, but also just looking around and singing together and thinking like we are we're getting a a foretaste, a a picture of of the new creation uh beforehand, even now as we gather Sunday after Sunday. And that's just so encouraging to think about that that even just a little glimmer of newness that we might see uh in our church that God is doing is just like just a small slit of a window into all that is to come in the new creation.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Praise the Lord. Braden is fun talking. Um, thankful for you, brother, and we're thankful for you listening. Most of all, we're thankful for Christ. We're signing off for Fields Notes. We will see you next time.