The United Ghanaian Community Church (UGCC), a congregation of the Presbyterian Church, USA (PCUSA) in Philadelphia, celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ in grand Ghanaian style on Easter Sunday.
The service, attended by over 320 worshippers, was marked by baptism and dedication of children, as well as presentation of special plaques of recognition to four outstanding founding members of the church, namely: Baaba Ofosu-Donkoh, Ambrose Ohene Darko, Joana Gladys Darko and Rebecca Okyere.
In an Easter Sunday message titled ?From Friday to Sunday,? the Rev. Kobina Ofosu-Donkoh, founding Pastor of the church, described the disappointment and subsequent withdrawal of the disciples of Jesus after the crucifixion as indicative of a lack of absolute trust in the promises of Lord or they must have had some kind of a temporary amnesia, since Jesus had on several occasions made it very clear to them that after his death, he would be raised from the dead in three days.
Dr. Ofosu-Donkoh urged the worshippers to remember that whatever the Lord has said about them will come to pass, and that they may be having Friday experiences just as the disciples had, but that Sunday was on its way coming, because God has said so. Rev. Dr. Ofosu-Donkoh lamented that ?Even though we know the promises of God concerning us, there is always a certain degree of disappointment, grief, and despair in our lives, because we often don?t remember them very well or somehow we doubt them? And so we fail to keep them in the forefront of our minds and our hearts. Sometimes we seem to lack the faith to expect Jesus to do great things in our lives. We struggle with that simple faith to take God at His word, the faith to believe that God will do what God has said he will do.?
The pastor noted that Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early on the first Easter Sunday morning, when it was still dark. ?But the darkness in the physical realm was no match for the darkness that had invaded her soul, her heart, her mind.? We, as Christians, have those ?dark nights of the soul,? when things seem so bleak, so disappointing, so discouraging, that we lose sight of the promises of God. ?But with the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead comes a living hope for us, the hope that though it may still be dark in our lives, yet God is capable of illuminating our path, shaking and loosening what?s been tightened, opening what?s been sealed, and rolling back stones and stumbling blocks that hinder our progress, in order to raise up into life the things that seem buried in our lives,? he emphasized.
Good Friday, he said, is representative of darkness and bleakness. But Easter Sunday is symbolic of deliverance, resurrection, and restoration. ?The empty tomb tells us that with God there will always be a Sunday after a Friday, that with God all things are possible, that no miracle is too big, that no ocean is too wide, and that no challenge is too great for God to make a way.?
Please visit the UGCC website at www.ugccweb.org
