UUFSMA: “The Easter Experience in Real Time”

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Online Service
“The Easter Experience in Real Time”

Speaker: Reverend Tom Rosiello

Sunday, April 4, 2021
10:30 am

Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/414604040 

Password: 294513

By Joseph Plummer

UUF Secretary

This Easter Sunday participants in the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Miguel’s online service will focus on a universal message that Easter has for everyone.  Led by the Rev. Tom Rosiello, UUFSMA’s Minister, the service will feature readings and music for the season and a sermon that applies the Easter story to people struggling today to emerge from the entombing stillness of a worldwide pandemic.

The finale of COVID isolation appears to be in sight after this past year of nearly 3-million lives lost to the disease worldwide. And Easter offers the opportunity to celebrate our own lives emerging from this cavern of disease. The online service will open with the lyrics of a traditional Georgian sea shanty, “Day is abreakin and the Easter sun is rising in our souls.”

After the year-long experience of feeling engraved with darkness, Reverend Rosiello promises a service reflecting the poetic spirit of the great Unitarian Universalist minister Richard Gilbert.

A tomb is no place to stay,
Be it a cave in the Judaean hills
Or the dark cavern of the spirit.

A tomb is no place to stay
When fresh grass rolls away the stone of winter cold
And valiant flowers burst their way to warmth and light.

A tomb is no place to stay
When each morning announces our reprieve,
And we know we are granted yet another day of living.

A tomb is no place to stay
When life laughs a welcome

To hearts that have been away too long.

“Whether or not the biblical version of the first Easter is believable to you,” Rev. Rosiello says, “a person does not need to remain imprisoned by events. We have the power to roll the stone away and walk into the light. We all need a little Easter right now!”

Beside the minister’s sermon, the service will offer musical alleluias and familiar Easter songs as well as the words of the poet e.e cummings, a Unitarian, and the Afro-American theologian Howard Thurman.

To participate in our online Sunday Service, visit the Fellowship’s website at www.uufsma.org and click on the Zoom Service button displayed on the home page. If requested, enter password: 294513. Sign-in from anywhere Sunday mornings between 10:15-10:25 am CST.

Through grants and awards, UUFSMA donates at least fifty percent of its budget to support nonprofit organizations that provide health, educational, and environmental services for underserved communities in the San Miguel region. Please support this work by clicking on the website home page Donate button. Now more than ever, your support is essential.

Due to the coronavirus, UUFSMA has suspended in-person Sunday services and other gatherings. A growing collection of previous online services can be found on the UUFSMA’s YouTube channel. Go to https://www.youtube.com/ and enter UUFSMA in the search box. The UU Fellowship welcomes people of all ages, races, religions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.