Hi everyone! For this special "April-Fools-Day-After-Easter" issue, we thought we'd redo Luther's Rose to six points instead of five, just for yucks. Obviously, sophisticated humor is a common trait among the 5PF staff, so while you're trying to recover from uncontrollable laughter, we'll just say thanks for allowing this little delay in our fortnightly newsletter so that it wouldn't go out on Good Friday.

Our next 5PF will be VOLUME ONE ISSUE NINETEEN AND will return to the normal Friday publication schedule. Thanks for subscribing, everyone! And since it's a a season of sharing, why not pass this stellar publication on to a friend! But also be sure to let them know that if they would like to UN-subscribe (why would they? but you never know), please send a request to our circulation department at delaney@vasynod.org.

Our last Random Debate was suggested by alert readers who noticed that we would be publishing on March 15th, aka "The Ides of March," aka the day Julius Caesar died peacefully while surrounded by his closest friends and associates, who just happened to have knives. We wondered whether our readers would take better precautions against such an unpleasant end than Caesar did. About 44% of readers said that yes, when you're a bully and a bossy-pants you can't be too careful, while 56% of readers are adored by their subjects and have nothing to worry about. Good luck, tyrants!

Next up: the Easter holiday has highlighted concerns about the recent dramatic drop in the supply of cocoa beans, which will lead to a spike in the cost of chocolate that's going to make higher gas prices look like loose change. What ever will we do?

THIS WEEK'S RANDOM DEBATE:

In this season of Easter, which always comes in spring, we are invited by Karyn Bigelow, Co-Executive Director of Creation Justice Ministries, to reflect on the connection between resurrection and the practice of countering the culture of death that seems sometimes to dominate the earth:

In John 20, there is this imagery of the moment when the disciples went to the tomb in the middle of a garden and came to eventually believe and understand that Jesus was in fact no longer dead, but was resurrected. The disciples and many of Jesus' followers didn’t fully understand what Jesus had been foreshadowing for years. They woke up that day in lament, but left the garden as believers in the resurrection of Christ. 

My colleague, Derrick Weston, wrote about the need to lament on Good Friday–and I fully affirm the need to lament as it is a big and necessary practice throughout scripture. After the lament of Good Friday comes the beauty and grace of resurrection. 

I found myself pondering what it means to live in the hope of the resurrection in a world that is surrounded with death of people and non-human species right now? 

So often resurrection is discussed as the conquering of death that brings about salvation. This is still true, but it is not the only thing that the resurrection was able to overcome. Jesus conquered the empire and systems of death. Another way to think about it as an overcoming of institutions that oppress so much of creation.

Then and now, institutions are often still sources of violence and oppression. Often the people who were oppressed and persecuted by the state were subject to the rules of the state, including the sentencing of death. But in the resurrection of Jesus, the “rule” of the empire concerning death was overthrown. 

Part of how we live out our faith as Christians is to be like Christ. There are so many ways in which we can engage in bettering our world and it means overcoming institutions through our daily actions and advocacy. Are there ways in which we can support local farmers more instead of contributing to industrial farming that often is bad for land and leads to pollution of local waterways? Are there ways in which we can connect with more local Indigenous-led efforts to protect the ocean and public lands from additional drilling of oil? 

On this Easter or Resurrection Sunday, what can you do tomorrow, the next day and beyond to what can you do to help topple over institutions that oppress so much of God’s creation? 

The 5PF editorial staff had quite a time discussing whether this issue should have a completely April Fool's theme. The best idea was to say that the name was being permanently changed to "6-Petal Monday" and see if there was any reaction. In the end we just ran out of time to make it work, plus the staff was divided on whether it was even funny in the first place, thinking that most readers would just shrug and say "okay, whatever." Happy April Fool's Day!

To provide feedback ... ask questions ... obtain more info on any of this ... contact Dave Delaney, Virginia Synod Director for Youth and Young Adult Ministries: delaney@vasynod.org