We celebrate Easter this year in a world at war, a world tired, anxious, and hungry for good news that does not deny reality. This reflection asks what Christians really mean by victory when suffering, fear, and injustice persist. Easter is not about pretending everything is fine, but about refusing to let despair win.

On Good Friday, Angel Nalubega preaches a powerful homily about the cross. Leaning on the theology of James Cone, she says that we cannot understand the cross without the lynching tree. Christ the Victor is the suffering servant, the poor man.

The Rev. Simone Drinkwater explores the significance of the cross and passion narrative, emphasizing its central role in early Christianity. She challenges the modern focus on resurrection, urging believers to embody self-giving love and hope, transforming present suffering into a vision of the world to come.

This sermon reflects on Jesus’ raising of Lazarus as the culmination of his life‑giving ministry and a witness to God’s desire for human beings to be fully alive. It challenges Christians to confront the death‑dealing powers of our world that deny abundant life to so many. It ends by returning to the honest questions of a child, grounding hope in the conviction that no one is abandoned to the tomb.

We live in a world that trains us to scroll past complexity and look away from suffering. This sermon invites us to resist that pressure and to see again with the clarity, nuance, and courage Lent demands. From encounters with unhoused neighbors to rising antisemitism, and from disability justice to digital distraction, we’ll ask what God longs for us to see. And where the Spirit is already helping us take a second look.

In this session of our newcomers class at St. Michael and All Angels in Albuquerque, we explore how Christians — especially in the Episcopal tradition — understand the Bible as a library of texts written across many centuries.

Together we look at the structure of the Hebrew Bible (the TaNaK), the origins of the New Testament, how the canon came to be, and why different Christian communities treat biblical books differently.

We also talk about interpretation: literalism, inspiration, and how Episcopalians read scripture in community. Rather than treating the Bible as a rulebook, we look for the larger direction it points us toward — freedom, life, and the possibility of becoming fully alive in God.

This class is part of our “Newcomers Class” a series for newcomers and the curious. If you're wondering how Episcopalians approach scripture — historically, theologically, and spiritually — this video is a great place to start.

Join us Sunday for discussion, questions, and some hands-on engagement with the text.

🙏 Thanks for watching, and God bless.

00:00 – Welcome & Overview

00:19 – What Is the Bible? A Library of Books

01:41 – Hebrew Bible and New Testament

05:00 – The Torah and the Foundations of Scripture

12:04 – The Gospels and Early Christian Writings

17:19 – Understanding Revelation

21:56 – Inspiration, Literalism, and Interpretation

28:40 – How Episcopalians Read Scripture

31:25 – The Bible as Direction, Not Directions

32:31 – Closing Blessing

The Rev. Simone Drinkwater reflects on the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John’s Gospel as a story shaped by cultural tension, religious estrangement, and unexpected openness. She notes how the conversation crosses boundaries of gender, ethnicity, and faith, even as it reveals the awkwardness and pain carried by John’s community of outcasts. Drawing on her own perspective as a trans woman with Samaritan ancestry, she names both the dignity and the difficulties within the story. In a world marked by conflict and misuse of power, she calls the church to engage in similarly uncomfortable but necessary conversations, trusting the Holy Spirit to work through them and make us instruments of peace.

In this newcomers class at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church, we look at two core questions: Why Christianity? and Why the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement?

The class follows four main movements:

1. Christianity and resistance

We begin with the world Jesus lived in: a world shaped by empire. Drawing on Howard Thurman and liberation theologians like Orlando Espín, we explore how Christianity began as a way for ordinary people to endure and resist systems of domination. We also name the hard truth that the church has often blessed empire—and how many Christians today are returning to the movement’s earliest roots in compassion and justice.

2. Christianity as inheritance

Christianity gives us stories that have shaped our culture and our moral imagination. Many of us inherit prayers, practices, and community through family or through returning to faith after time away. We talk about what it means to receive these stories honestly and interpret them for our own lives.

3. The centrality of Jesus

We turn to Jesus himself: his boundary-crossing compassion, his preaching about the Reign of God, and his ability to make people more fully alive. Jesus remains the deepest reason many of us stay Christian.

4. Why the Episcopal Church

We consider how the Episcopal tradition holds ancient faith and real openness together. We talk about the Anglican approach to questions, the role of the creeds in worship, and the central place of the Eucharistic table.

The video ends with two icons of the Trinity—Rublev’s traditional image and Kelly Latimore’s contemporary reimagining—both reminding us that there is room at the table for every person, including those the church has excluded.